A workshop that took place on the conference "The Restoration of Normality – Mirroring the Past in the Future" with the themes (among others) domestic violence, restorative justice, social support for ex-offenders, education & training and building up a probation service.
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The main hypothesis underlying this article is that although arbitrators are not formally part of national justice systems, they have dealt with questions of EU fundamental rights and the European rule of law standards for quite some time, at least formally since the landmark CJEU judgment in Eco Swiss in 1999. In fact, in all forms of arbitration, be it national or international, taking place in or across (Member) States daily and not necessarily concerning the application by arbitrators of EU law stricto sensu, arbitrators can be seen as guardians of many crucial procedural guarantees that increase parties’ access to justice and advance the European rule of law, or so we wish to argue. This article is an exploratory piece. That is, it combines the format of the state-of-the-art review with the format of conference proceedings through which we present the main activities of the DG Justice TRIIAL project concerning arbitration. Our main goal is three-fold: (1) to advance the discussion on the relationship between the European rule of law and arbitration, (2) to present the main findings stemming from research and training activities within the TRIIAL training workshops on arbitration, and (3) to formulate future research and practical questions on the topic at hand.
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The realization of human rights standards depends in part on the commitment of local actors. It can be argued that local public service professionals such as social workers can also be regarded as key players. The possible role of social workers becomes imperative if these professionals are working in a policy context that is not congruent with human rights. If existing laws or policies cause or maintain disrespect for human rights, social workers are in a position to observe that this is having an adverse impact on clients. When social workers are regarded as human rights actors, the question arises how they can or should respond to law and policy that impedes them in carrying out their work with respect for human rights. This article adds to existing theories on social workers as human rights actors by examining the practices of social professionals working in such a challenging policy context. The research took place among professionals in social district teams in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Following a series of decentralizations and austerity measures the social care landscape in the Netherlands has changed drastically over the last few years. As a result, social workers may find themselves on the one hand trying to realize the best possible care for their clients while on the other hand dealing with new laws and policy expectations focused on self-reliance and diminished access to specialist care. The article explores how social professionals’ responses to barriers in access to care affect human rights requirements. In doing so, this socio-legal study provides insight into the ways in which everyday social work relates to the realization of human rights at the local level.
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The research group Participation, Care and Support is part of the Research Centre for Social Innovation of Utrecht University for Applied Sciences. This is a transdisciplinary research centre, doing practice based research focused on relevant social issues, connecting different fields like social work, care, law, employment, policy and organisation. In the centre, around 125 researchers are active and every year several hundreds of students are participating in research projects. Our research group has around 15 members, including people with personal experience with a disability or a mental health issue
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This study explores legal consciousness of social workers within the framework of the 2015 Social Support Act (SSA) in the Netherlands. The aim of this law is to provide social support and care to citizens with impairments or chronic psychological or psychosocial problems, with the goal of enabling people to live independently and actively participate in society. The SSA grants entitlement to a needs assessment to applicants, essential for accessing personalized provisions. This assessment is a pivotal legal evaluation for persons with disabilities to ultimately exercise their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), ratified by the Netherlands in 2016. With the use of the concept of legal consciousness, this study aims to contribute to understanding social workers’ experiences, understandings, and actions in relation to law in the context of legal decision-making on behalf of the council.
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This research examines the legal capabilities of social care practitioners involved in a new decision-making process, ‘the kitchen table conversation’, used since the introduction of the 2015 Social Support Act in the Netherlands. This law delegates social care allocation to the local authorities, who employ social care practitioners to assess and decide upon the needs of applicants for personalised services. Dit onderzoek focust op de juridische competenties van sociale professionals die betrokken zijn bij het ‘keukentafelgesprek’, een manier van werken die is geïntroduceerd met de transities in het sociaal domein. Sinds de implementatie van de Wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning (Wmo 2015) zijn Nederlandse gemeenten verplicht onderzoek te doen naar de persoonlijke situatie van mensen die zich melden met een ondersteuningsvraag. De wet delegeert de toekenning van maatschappelijke zorg aan de lokale overheden, die sociale professionals inzetten om de behoeften aan maatschappelijke ondersteuning van cliënten te onderzoeken.
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Designers have grown increasingly interested in social consequences of new technologies. As social impacts become increasingly important it might be fruitful to understand how social impacts develop and how a designer can anticipate these consequences. In health care practices, for instance, it is important to control unintended social impacts at forehand. Social impact is an outcome of the mediating effect of a technology with its social environment. Human behaviour in a social environment can be analysed from the perspective of a social ecological system. To anticipate social impacts simulations of social practices are needed. To simulate practices the persona approach has been adapted to a screenplay approach in which the elements of a social ecology are used to gain a rich description of a social environment. This has been applied for a 'Heart Managers' case. It was concluded that the screenplay approach can be used for a systematic simulation of future social impacts.
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Hoofdstuk 2 gaat over peer en professionele online support voor ouders bij het opvoeden. In totaal bevat het boek 31 hoofdstukken over sociaal netwerken, geschreven door tientallen onderzoekers wereldwijd.
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This open access book states that the endemic societal faultlines of our times are deeply intertwined and that they confront us with challenges affecting the security and sustainability of our societies. It states that new ways of inhabiting and cultivating our planet are needed to keep it healthy for future generations. This requires a fundamental shift from the current anthropocentric and economic growth-oriented social contract to a more ecocentric and regenerative natural social contract. The author posits that in a natural social contract, society cannot rely on the market or state alone for solutions to grand societal challenges, nor leave them to individual responsibility. Rather, these problems need to be solved through transformative social-ecological innovation (TSEI), which involves systemic changes that affect sustainability, health and justice. The TSEI framework presented in this book helps to diagnose and advance innovation and change across sectors and disciplines, and at different levels of governance. It identifies intervention points and helps formulate sustainable solutions for policymakers, administrators, concerned citizens and professionals in moving towards a more just and equitable society.
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The structure and financing of collective long-term care and support in the Netherlands changed dramatically with the introduction of the Social Support Act (WMO) the 1st of January 2015. This act arranged that municipalities assist people to live in their homes for as long as possible by providing various forms of aid and support. This aid and support however, is in addition to the help that people arrange for themselves and / or receive in the form of volunteer aid (mantelzorg) by family, friends and neighbours. Furthermore under this Act people only become eligible for state financed sheltered accommodation in the exceptional case of severe physical or mental illness. The fact that under the new regime of the Social Support Act municipal support is made additional to volunteer aid, it is important to understand what role family, friends and neighbours potentially can play and in fact do play. This is especially important in regions were unbalanced population decline through out-migration of young people, effectively changes social structures and accelerates the ageing of the population. For this reason we designed a limited pilot-study to test the possibilities and the necessity of a broader study focussing on potential and every day practice concerning volunteer aid for elderly in regions characterized by unbalanced population decline. In this pilot study we will focus on a rural municipality in the north of the Netherlands: Oldambt.Within the framework of this pilot-study we focussed on living arrangements and social network of two groups of senior citizens; one group of men and women aged 65-79 and one group aged 80 years and over. Based on demographic data kindly made available by the municipal office of Oldambt, in this paper we will draw a picture of these citizens living in the municipality. Going deeper into the material and the municipality’s structure we will than focus on one of the municipality’s communities, Finsterwolde, with its village, hamlets and surrounding rural area. For the purpose of this pilot-study we constructed a sample of 30 men and women aged 80+-elderly and asked them to fill in a questionnaire. Based on the outcomes of these questionnaires we than had five in-depth interviews with some of them. Finally, on the basis of the gathered material, we will draw some general conclusions while presenting some new questions for further research into the living conditions and social support systems for elderly in a region with unbalanced population decline and accelerated ageing.
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