On the 28^th of June, the European Commission jointly with the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care and Hope and Homes for Children organised an online seminar for desk officers from DG EMPL, REGIO, RECOVER, NEAR and REFORM. The aim of the webinar was to inform the European Commission about the tools and good practices supporting independent living and family-and community-based care in light of the new funding regulations and policies.

The event counted on the participation of several speakers from the European Commission, academia, and civil society organisations presenting main EU policies and EEG publications, as well as practical examples on independent living.

Mr Loris di Pietrantonio, Head of Unit at DG EMPL responsible for programming and implementation of the European Social Fund +, opened the event followed by Professor Julie Beadle-Brown, who presented the report on the Transition from Institutional Care to Community-Based Services in 27 EU Member States, which she co-authored together with Professor Jan Šiška.

ProfessorBeadle-Brown presented the main finding of the study. During her intervention, she also stressed the need to develop person-centred and individualised support, the lack of affordable community-based services and housing, and the sustainability of EU-funded projects that promote deinstitutionalisation.

Ms Inmaculada Placencia Porrero, Senior Expert on social affairs at DG EMPL, presented a broad overview of the Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030, focusing on aspects connected to deinstitutionalisation and independent living. Among the actions foreseen in the Strategy, it was emphasized the guidance, which will be issued by the Commission by 2023, with recommendations to Member States aiming at improvements on independent living and inclusion in the community, in order to enable persons with disabilities to live in accessible, supported housing in the community, or to continue living at home (including personal assistance schemes). In addition, the speaker also presented the European Accessibility Act, in its connection with independent living.

Ms Michela Costa, Director of Global & EU Advocacy at Hope and Homes for Children,presented the updated version of EU funds Checklist to Promote Independent Living and Deinstitutionalisation. The purpose of the checklist is to ensure EU funds in the 2021-2027 programming period contribute to independent living and inclusion in the community. More specifically, the checklist supports EC Desk Officers to check the consistency of the measures with the legal and policy frameworks in the fields of:

• Transition from institutional to family-based and community-based services for children, persons with disabilities, persons with mental health problems and elderly persons
• Development of quality family-based and community-based services
• Prevention of separation of children, including with disabilities, from their families
• Prevention of segregation and institutionalisation of children, persons with disabilities, persons with mental health problems, older people and homeless people, regardless of the residence status.

Finally, EEG members presented practical examples of community-based services. Ms Irene Bertana, Senior Policy Officer at the European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD), presented an EU-funded project on providing technical assistance on preparing of the deinstitutionalisation strategy in Greece. Ms Ines Bulic, Deputy Director at the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL), presented a practical example about personal assistance as one of the types of community-based support.

Participants posed questions to speakers, mainly regarding the implementation of community-based services given the obstacles related to the lack of accessibility of buildings in many EU countries and regarding the sustainability of investing in  deinstitutionalisation. They have also raised questions about residential care for children with disabilities, in particular how to ensure best care in family-based care, and how to develop family-based services and increase number of foster families. The European Child Guarantee was mentioned as a tool to address those needs. The online seminar provided a space for both desk officers and members of the EEG to discuss the persistent questions and share the good practices as well as challenges and opportunities intertwined with the deinstitutionalisation process.

In 2020 the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care (EEG) contacted the European Commission to voice serious concerns about a large-scale institution for 100 residents with mental health issues in the city of Łódź, Poland. It was a clear example of EU funds being invested in an institutional care setting, something which the EU Regulations covering investments from this source outline as being de facto ineligible for funding. In August 2020, EEG Member ENIL, together with the Validity Foundation, filed a formal complaint.

Nearly a year on, the planned investment, known as “Wyjątkowy dom”, is still going ahead and there has been no substantive response to justify its continuation.

The EEG urges the Łódź Voivodeship Managing Authority to halt plans for the construction of this institution and, in the case where this does not happen, calls on the European Commission to suspend its funding and encourage investment in community-based services.

The EEG defines an institution as any residential care where:

• residents are isolated from the broader community and/or compelled to live together;

• residents do not have sufficient control over their lives and over decisions which affect them; and

• the requirements of the organisation itself tend to take precedence over the residents’ individual needs.

The three-story former school building being converted into a care home is not compatible with the right to live independently and be included in the community, as affirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), ratified both by Poland and the EU. Specifically, it represents an infringement of CRPD Article 19, as well as its General Comment 5 and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

While the project claims to aim at the “deinstitutionalisation of social services and care” – building a large-scale, congregated setting for persons coming from the whole region cannot be interpreted as deinstitutionalisation by any stretch of imagination. On the contrary, it contravenes the definition of a community-based service, and goes against the principles expressed in the EEG Common European Guidelines and Toolkit on the transition from institutional to community-based care.

Article 4(6) of the Common Provision Regulations (CPR) for the current funding period states that the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) have to be used in a manner which is compliant with the EU social inclusion policies and that ERDF should not be used to renovate or build new institutions.

This investment clearly fails to fulfil all the requirement above. It neither facilitates the rights of persons with support needs to choose where and with whom they live or to be included in the community, nor has the capacity to build support around each person’s individual requirements and preferences. The size of this setting alone raises alarm bells, clearly being an institution even in the most traditional sense of the term.

Beyond the infringement on the right to live independently and being included in the community, we also saw during the COVID-19 pandemic the tragic consequences of congregated living conditions. We therefore ask the Managing Authorities in Poland and the European Commission to look into this matter and take the necessary steps to ensure that the funding is redirected towards independent living, community-based and person-centred support, in compliance with the CRPD, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the CPR. Instead of the construction and extension of institutional settings, it is necessary to develop a range of services at community level, as well as to support personal assistance schemes.

About the EEG

The European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care (EEG) is a broad coalition gathering stakeholders representing people with care or support needs and their families, including children, people with disabilities, homeless people, and people experiencing mental health problems; as well as service providers, public authorities and UNICEF.

Contact: coordinator@deinstitutionalisation.com

The Statement is available in pdf here.

During the funding period 2014-2020, EU funds have played a crucial role in bringing persons with disabilities, children, older people and homeless people out of institutions. Despite this advances, progress still must be made, since there have been cases reported where the principles of deinstitutionalisation have not been respected and where money was invested in building or refurbishing institutional care settings.

In order to ensure EU funds are not used to promote institutionalisation in EU Member States, the EEG and its member organisations have advocated to influence the wording in the texts of the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR) and the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF).

The aim of this article is to highlight the successful advocacy work done by the EEG and its members, which were taken into account in the final texts of both the CPR and the ERDF and to point out some of the articles that are particularly relevant to the EEG.

The full article is available in pdf here.

What are the CPR, the ERDF, and the ESF+

The Common Provisions Regulation (CPR) is a piece of over-arching legislation that applies to various EU funding programmes, including the European Social Fund + (ESF+) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It outlines rules that must be followed for the use of funds. It also outlines the criteria by which projects must adhere to be eligible for EU funding. The CPR sets out common provisions for seven shared management: the Cohesion Fund, the European Maritime funds and Fisheries Fund, the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund Plus, the Asylum and Migration Fund, the Border Management and Visa Instrument and the Internal Security Fund.

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) invests in infrastructure, innovation and research, the digital agenda, support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the low-carbon economy. The aim is to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union by correcting imbalances between its regions.

As for the European Social Fund plus (ESF+), this is Europe’s main instrument to invest in people. The aim of the fund is to supports jobs, help people get better jobs and ensure fairer job opportunities for all EU citizens. The ESF+ finances the implementation of the principles from the European Pillar for Social Rights through actions in the area of employment, education & skills and social inclusion.[1] The fund is committed to building a socially inclusive society.

In 2018 the European Commission released its proposal for a new CPR, ERDF and ESF+ covering the period 2021-2027. In December 2020/January 2021 an agreement was reached between the European Parliament and the Council on the final wording of the Regulations.

The EEG and its members advocated extensively for the Regulations to include a number of provisions that would result in the Regional Development Fund being used more effectively for accessibility and deinstitutionalisation for persons with disabilities.

Relevant achievements to the EEG

We summarised the main advocacy achievements in the final texts of the CPR, the ERDF, and the ESF+. We will show you excerpts of the regulations to explain what the texts now look like. Writing in bold and italic indicated where new next has been added since the Commission’s original proposal was released. Where you see text in bold with a strike through, this shows text that used to exist but has been removed from the final version.

Common Provisions Regulation (CPR)[2]

• Article 67, on the selection of operations by the managing authority, outlines the ways in which managing authorities shall go about selecting EU funded operations.

The final text states that the criteria and the procedures should be non-discriminatory. After advocacy work from the EEG, it also states clearly that the criteria and procedures must “ensure accessibility to persons with disabilities” as well as gender equality. This means that for all funding covered by the CPR, managing authorities must consider the impact it will have on accessibility for persons with disabilities and systematically turn away anything that perpetuates barriers. This is important because ensuring community living and inclusion means ensuring infrastructure and processes are accessible to all.

Final text of Article 67:

1. For the selection of operations, the managing authority shall establish and apply criteria and procedures which are non-discriminatory, transparent, ensure accessibility to persons with disabilities, gender equality and take account of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the principle of sustainable development and of the Union policy on the environment […]

• Article 6 on partnership and multi-level governance explains how different stakeholders are included in selecting and monitoring how funds are used. It explains that this process should include “relevant bodies representing civil society, such as environmental partners, non-governmental organisations, and bodies responsible for promoting social inclusion, fundamental rights, rights of persons with disabilities, gender equality and non-discrimination”.

The EEG also successfully advocated for the article to mention that funds should be allocated towards capacity building for these stakeholders. This will mean that money should be able to be allocated to civil society organisations that want to be part of the partnership and multi-level governance process in their Member State, and to help them be better prepared for playing an active role.

Final text of Article 6:

1. For the Partnership Agreement and each programme, each Member State shall organise and implement a comprehensive partnership in accordance with its institutional and legal framework and taking into account the specificities of the Funds with the competent regional and local authorities. That partnership shall include at least the following partners:

(c) relevant bodies representing civil society, such as environmental partners, non-governmental organisations, and bodies responsible for promoting social inclusion, fundamental rights, rights of persons with disabilities, gender equality and non-discrimination.

2. The partnership established under paragraph 1 shall operate in accordance with the multi-level governance principle and a bottom-up approach. The Member State shall involve those partners in the preparation of Partnership Agreements and throughout the preparation and, implementation and evaluation of programmes including through participation in monitoring committees.

In that context, Member States shall, where relevant, allocate an appropriate percentage of the resources coming from the Funds for the administrative capacity building of social partners and civil society organisations. For Interreg programmes, the Partnership shall include partners from all participating Member States.

4. At least once a year, the Commission shall consult organisations which represent partners at Union level on the implementation of programmes, and shall report to the European Parliament and Council on the outcome.

• Recital 5, at the beginning of the Regulation, gives an overview of the horizontal principles of how the funds covered by the CPR should be used. The Commission’s original proposal already stated that Member States should “respect the obligations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and ensure accessibility in line with its article 9 and in accordance with the Union law harmonising accessibility requirements for products and services.” This has been retained in the final wording.

To this the co-legislators agreed to add the importance of respecting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. For persons with disabilities, the most significant additions were the mention that “the Funds should be implemented in a way that promotes the transition from institutional to family and community-based care” and that, when financing infrastructure, the funds “should ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities”.

Final text of Recital 5:

(5) Horizontal principles as set out in Article 3 of the Treaty on the European Union (‘TEU’) and in Article 10 of the TFEU, including principles of subsidiarity and proportionality as set out in Article 5 of the TEU should be respected in the implementation of the Funds, taking into account the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Member States should also respect the obligations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and ensure accessibility in line with its article 9 and in accordance with the Union law harmonising accessibility requirements for products and services. In that context, the Funds should be implemented in a way that promotes the transition from institutional to family and community-based care. Member States and the Commission should aim at eliminating inequalities and at promoting equality between men and women and integrating the gender perspective, as well as at combating discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. The Funds should not support actions that contribute to any form of segregation or exclusion, and, when financing infrastructure, should ensure the accessibility for persons with disabilities.

Final text of the “Thematic Enabling Conditions” (Annex IV)

Policy objective	Specific objective	Name of enabling condition	Fulfilment criteria for the enabling condition
4 -A more social Europe by implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights	ERDF: 4.3 increasing the socioeconomic integration of marginalised communities, migrants and disadvantaged groups, through integrated measures including housing and social services (…)	National strategic policy framework for social inclusion and poverty reduction (…)	A national strategic policy framework for social inclusion and poverty reduction is in place that includes:  (…) 3. Measures for the shift from institutional to community-based care   4. Arrangements for ensuring that its design, implementation, monitoring and review is conducted in close cooperation with social partners and relevant civil society organisations. (…)
4 -A more social Europe by implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights	ERDF: 4.4 ensuring equal access to health care through developing infrastructure, including primary care (…)	Strategic policy framework for health. (…)	A national or regional strategic policy framework for health is in place that contains: (…) 3. Measures to promote community-based services, including prevention and primary care, home-care and community-based services. (…)

As laid down in the table above, a more social Europe through the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights is one of the policy objectives listed. One of the ERDF specific objectives, it is to increase “the socioeconomic integration of marginalised communities, migrants and disadvantaged groups, through integrated measures including housing and social services”. This shall be done through a national strategic policy framework for social inclusion and poverty reduction in place that includes “3. Measures for the shift from institutional to community-based care”; and  “4. Arrangements for ensuring that its design, implementation, monitoring and review is conducted in close cooperation with social partners and relevant civil society organisations”.

Still on the policy objective for a more social Europe through the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, One of the ERDF specific objectives, it is to ensure “equal access to health care through developing infrastructure, including primary care”. This shall be done by a national or regional strategic policy framework for health that, amongst others, contain “Measures to promote community-based services, including prevention and primary care, home-care and community-based services.”

Important to note that table above only contains the most relevant information for the work of the EEG.

European Regional Development Funds (ERDF)[3]

Article 2 on Specific objectives for the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund outlines the objectives for the use of this fund and the Cohesion fund. It is an article of key importance giving direction to how the money will be used in the Member States.

The most crucial amendment the EEG wa able to get accepted into the text were the mention of the need to invest in “promoting the transition from institutional to family- and community-based care”.

Final text of Article 2:

1. In accordance with the policy objectives set out in Article [4(1)] of Regulation (EU) 2018/xxxx[new CPR], the ERDF shall support the following specific objectives:

(iv) ensuring equal access to health care and fostering resilience of health systems, including primary care, and promoting the transition from institutional to family- and community-based care;

Article 6 on exclusion from the scope of the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund was one of the key areas of the EEG’s advocacy on the ERDF. One of the biggest issues we have seen with the use of funds over previous funding periods is that money is still invested in renovating and building institutions. In this article on what is excluded from the scope of the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund, we were successful in having a new recital introduced. This recital states that the ERDF should support deinstitutionalisation, prevent funding segregated living conditions and seek to ensure independent living conditions.

Article 6 final text:

new recital (x) The ERDF should support and promote transition from institutional to community or family-based care through supporting facilities that would seek to prevent segregation from the community, would facilitate the integration of people to the society and would seek to ensure independent living conditions.

European Social Funds Plus (ESF+)[4]

The EEG is pleased to see that 2021-2027 funding regulations for the European Social Fund plus (ESF+) have recognised the transition from institutional to family- and community-based care as the issue that deserve investments. Moreover, the ESF+ will become one of the main tools to trigger investments to tackle child poverty and social exclusion.

The greatest achievement among all, is the Council Recommendation establishing the European Child Guarantee. The agreement foresees that 5% of this budget will be used to tackle child poverty. This means that EU member states with an average of EU child poverty higher than the EU average of 23.4% will have to allocate at least 5% of their ESF+ financial resources to fight child poverty and social exclusion. Children in institutions, children with disabilities and homeless children are among the main target groups.

Although we have advocated for higher percentage the European Social Fund plus should invest 25% of its resources for social inclusion as indicated in Article 7 on thematic concentration:

Final text of Article 7 (3) – Consistency and thematic concentration

3.  Member States shall allocate at least 25% of their ESF+ resources under shared management to the specific objectives for the social inclusion policy area set out in points (vii) to (x) of Article 4(1), including the promotion of the socio-economic integration of third country nationals.

Article 7, (3)  is an important progress since no ring-fencing of ESF for social inclusion was in 2014-2020 funding period.

Finally, meaningful involvement of civil society in programming, implementation, and evaluation of ESF+ is key to deliver the best possible outcomes. Therefore, we are pleased to see that partnership is reiterated (Article 8) as well as support for capacity building of stakeholders including CSOs by 0,25% of ESF+ resources:

Final text of Article 8 – Partnership

1. Each Member State shall ensure adequate participation of social partners and civil society organisations in the delivery of employment, education and social inclusion policies supported by the ESF+ strand under shared management.
2. Member States shall allocate an appropriate amount of ESF+ resources under shared management in each programme for the capacity building of social partners and civil society organisations, including in the form of training, networking measures, and strengthening of the social dialogue, and to activities jointly undertaken by the social partners.

When capacity building of social partners and civil society organisations is identified by a relevant country-specific recommendation adopted in accordance with Article 121(2) TFEU and Article 148(4) TFEU, the concerned Member State shall allocate an appropriate amount of at least 0.25% of ESF+ resources for that purpose.

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[1] https://ec.europa.eu/esf/main.jsp?catId=62&langId=en.

[2] Available at: https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6180-2021-INIT/en/pdf.

[3] Available at: https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6181-2021-INIT/en/pdf.

[4] Available at: https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6182-2021-INIT/en/pdf.

The European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care (EEG) has endorsed the EU Alliance for Investing in Children’s statement on the European Commission’s proposal for a Council Recommendation establishing the Child Guarantee.

Read the full statement below:

EU Alliance for Investing in Children statement on the European Commission’s proposal for a Council Recommendation establishing the Child Guarantee

On 24 March, the European Commission launched its proposal for a Council Recommendation establishing the Child Guarantee[1].

As identified in the European Commission’s proposal and press release, 18 million children or 22,2% of children in the EU were growing up at risk of poverty and social exclusion, before COVID-19. This figure will increase further due to the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic.

This means that almost 1 in 4 children in the EU are growing up without eating a daily hot, nutritious meal, or they live in inadequate housing conditions. 1 in 4 children are unable to fully attend school due to hidden and extra costs such as school trips or school meals, they cannot participate in sports or other activities like their peers and do not receive the healthcare that they need. 1 in 4 children in the EU grow up in vulnerable families that need support to break the cycle of poverty and provide for their children.

The EU Alliance for Investing in Children welcomes the European Commission’s ambitious proposal on the Council Recommendation establishing the Child Guarantee. The Alliance particularly welcomes the proposal for national Action Plans, the enabling policy framework that will allow EU Member States to take a comprehensive approach in tackling child and family poverty when implementing the Child Guarantee as well as the strong reference to the use of EU funds (ESF+, ERDF, REACT-EU, RRF, InvestEU and the Technical Assistance Support) and national budgets in implementing the measures outlined in the Child Guarantee Action Plans.

It is now up to the EU Member States to prove that the EU’s youngest population gets the support they need to thrive and reach their full potential.

The Alliance calls on the Council of the EU to:

• Adopt the Child Guarantee Council Recommendation as a matter of priority.

Child poverty is unacceptable as it is a condition that severely violates the rights of children. It is even more unacceptable in one of the world’s wealthiest regions. Therefore, the EU Alliance calls on EU Member States to prioritise child poverty reduction as a matter of urgency and to adopt the Child Guarantee Council Recommendation under the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU.

• Ensure that the Child Guarantee starts being implemented within six months from the adoption of the Child Guarantee Council Recommendation.

The Alliance welcomes the European Commission’s proposal that each EU Member State submits a Child Guarantee Action Plan covering the period until 2030, within six months from the adoption of the Child Guarantee Council Recommendation. The Child Guarantee Action Plans will allow the Council Recommendation to become implementable and will showcase the challenges, as well as the measures that EU Member States will take to tackle child poverty at the national, regional and local level.

The Alliance also welcomes the proposal for Child Guarantee National Coordinators equipped with adequate resources and mandates, who will effectively coordinate and monitor the implementation of the Recommendation.

The Alliance calls on EU Member States to adopt the Commission’s proposal and to ensure that the Child Guarantee starts being implemented within six months from the adoption of the Child Guarantee by having the Child Guarantee Action Plans submitted and the national Child Guarantee coordinators in place. Child Guarantee Action Plans must be reviewed on a regular basis in consultation with relevant stakeholders.

The Alliance also calls on the Council to strengthen the following parts of the European Commission’s proposal, ensuring that:

• Stakeholders as well as children and parents participate meaningfully in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Action Plans.

The Alliance welcomes the European Commission’s proposal that EU Member States should consult stakeholders, including civil society organisations and children in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Child Guarantee Action Plans.

The Alliance calls on EU Member States to further strengthen this proposal to ensure that children participate meaningfully in the action plans’ development, including through dedicated outreach measures targeting the most vulnerable of them. Specifically, we call on the Council to include a new part calling EU Member States to:

“Put in place mechanisms that promote children’s meaningful and rights-based participation in decision-making that affects their lives and in particular in relation to the fulfilment of the Child Guarantee. Develop structures to promote the meaningful participation of children in need in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Child Guarantee Action Plans and relevant frameworks developed as part of these plans as well as in the annual reporting of EU Member States to the European Commission”.

In addition, the Alliance for Investing in Children calls on the Council to also include parents among the stakeholders to be consulted on the Child Guarantee Action Plans.

• Access to healthy nutrition should not be only linked to school settings. 

The Alliance welcomes the emphasis given by the European Commission’s proposal to ensure that children in need have adequate, sustainable access to healthy nutrition, in particular considering that, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of schools, many children have suddenly been deprived of a reliable source of nutrition.

However, considering that children, from age 0 to 18, only spend 20% of their lifetime in formal settings, the Alliance calls on the Council to strengthen the European Commission’s proposal and add a new paragraph emphasising the necessity to support access to healthy meals also outside of the school system.

“EU Member States should set up a comprehensive framework regarding children’s access to healthy nutrition and ensure where needed direct distribution of free meals to children and their families such as soup kitchens, social cafeteria and door to door deliveries. Parents must also be empowered to provide healthy and nutritious meals for their children, including through in-kind or financial support”.

• Children have equal opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities – not only in school-based activities.

Sport, leisure and cultural activities play a crucial role in the personal and social development of children. Yet, children in need often face financial barriers to participate in these activities, or non-financial barriers such as the lack of proper infrastructures, language obstacles, discrimination or lack of qualified personnel. The Alliance welcomes the European Commission’s proposal to ensure equal and inclusive access to school-based activities. On the other hand, it is important to consider that in numerous Member States schools do not have the capacity or the infrastructure to ensure such activities, that it would be important to ensure children’s access to such activities also on days in which schools are closed, and that there are children who are receiving different kinds of education outside of the national school system and that would consequently be excluded.

Hence, the Alliance calls on the Council to strengthen the European Commission’s proposal and to include in the Recommendation children’s effective access to also sports, leisure and cultural activities organised outside of the school system and the school curricula.

• EU Member States set ambitious targets in their fight against child poverty. 

The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan sets a target to lift at least 5 million children out of poverty by 2030. Although the target goes in the right direction, it could have been more ambitious.

The Alliance welcomes the European Commission’s proposal that each EU Member State should present qualitative and quantitative targets in their Child Guarantee Action Plans. It calls on EU Member States to adopt ambitious targets that will exceed the European Commission’s target by taking into consideration the impact of COVID-19 and their commitment to implement the Sustainable Development Goals which call on States to half poverty in all its forms by 2030.

Sub-targets covering regional and local disparities also should be developed for each area of the Child Guarantee Council Recommendation, i.e. children’s effective free and access to early childhood education and care, all forms of inclusive education, healthcare, including maternal health care, effective access to sufficient and healthy nutrition, and effective access to adequate housing.

• The Child Guarantee is properly monitored and feeds into the European Semester annually.

An efficient system of monitoring and evaluation will be essential to ensure the Child Guarantee is an implementable instrument that triggers concrete reforms within the national and local systems.

The Alliance welcomes the European Commission’s proposal to monitor the implementation of the Recommendation in the context of the European Semester and the revised Social Scoreboard, including through the development of relevant monitoring indicators.

The Alliance stands ready to support the European Commission and the Social Protection Committee in this important task and calls on these two EU bodies to ensure that indicators are disaggregated and take into account children in need, including homeless children or children experiencing severe housing deprivation; children with  disabilities; children with a migrant background; children with a minority, racial or ethnic background (particularly Roma); children in alternative (especially institutional) care; children of single-parent families; as well as children in precarious situations as defined in the European Commission’s proposal on the Child Guarantee Council Recommendation.[2]

In addition, all relevant indicators should be disaggregated to better align with the areas identified by the European Commission’s proposal, i.e. children’s free and effective access to all forms of education, early childhood education and care, healthcare, effective access to adequate nutrition and decent housing, as well as children’s access to leisure, sports and cultural activities within or outside the school settings and school curricula. Finally, all relevant indicators should be disaggregated at local level, where it is possible, to have a clearer figure of the territorial differences and to better plan and monitor the implementation of the Recommendation.

The Alliance calls on the Council to adopt the European Commission’s proposal and to ensure the monitoring of the Recommendation through the well-established policy coordination framework of the European Semester. To further strengthen this proposal, the Alliance calls on EU Member States to annually report to the European Commission on the progress made in implementing the Recommendation and this reporting to feed into the annual Country Specific Recommendations.

• Support a child rights approach in tackling poverty and the fight against all forms of discrimination, segregation and bullying of children and their families when trying to access key rights, resources, and services.

The European Pillar of Social Rights reaffirms the commitment to mainstream equal opportunities in all relevant policy fields, and to build a Union of Equality, where children should reach their full potential.

The EU Alliance also welcomes the rights-based approach taken by the European Commission in the Child Guarantee proposal.

However, for all categories of children in need identified by the proposal for a Child Guarantee Recommendation, discrimination is an important deterrent to wellbeing, both in itself, leading to emotional distress and isolation, as well as in impeding effective access to income and services.

Segregation in housing, education, healthcare, and other aspects of life also breeds a sectioned view of society, which fuels inequalities and poverty. Stigmatization based on ethnic or racial origin, disability, socio-economic background, and other criteria significantly contributes to non-take-up of benefits and services by those who most need them.

We call on EU Member States to take a bold stance against all forms of discrimination on all grounds, including intersectional discrimination, and concerning all groups of children. Preventive, targeted and proactive measures are needed to alter public perceptions and prevalent misrepresentations, through comprehensive anti-bias measures and specific training for services and local authorities, as well as through ensuring diversity in the staff.

• Ensure that no child is placed in institutions and reinforce the transition from institutional to community-based care.

The Alliance wants to emphasise that all language and activities as described in the European Child Guarantee should be in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children (UNCRC), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and all EU policies and legislation.

In this regard, EU Member States should not allow the placement of children in institutional care or emergency shelters even as a last resort (wording proposed by the European Commission in recital 24). Extensive evidence shows that institutions can inflict long-term harms to children’s development and expose them to all manner of human rights abuses.

Therefore, to reinforce the proposal and to ensure it is in line with the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, the Alliance calls on the Council to amend Recital 24 as follows:

“Aiming at ensuring adequate protection and care for all children without or at risk of losing parental care, family support, quality community and family-based care should be promoted and the transition from institutions to quality alternative care should be actively pursued. Adequate services should also be provided to prepare children leaving care in order to support their independent living and social integration, including for unaccompanied migrant children”.

The Recommendation and national Action plans should thus promote the development and funding of high-quality family and community-based care and support services with a family-centred, community-based model of support.

The Statement is available in pdf here.

Endnote

The EU Alliance for Investing in Children has been advocating for a multidimensional, rights-based approach to tackling child poverty and promoting child well-being since 2014. This statement was endorsed by the following partner organisations of the EU Alliance for Investing in Children:

• Alliance for Childhood European Network Group
• ATD Quart Monde
• Caritas Europa
• COFACE Families Europe
• Don Bosco International
• Dynamo International – Street Workers Network
• ERGO Network
• Eurochild
• Eurodiaconia
• EuroHealthNet
• European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities – EASPD
• European Anti-Poverty Network – EAPN
• European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless – FEANTSA
• European Parents’ Association
• European Public Health Alliance – EPHA
• European Social Network – ESN
• Inclusion Europe
• Lifelong Learning Platform
• Lumos
• Mental Health Europe
• Make Mothers Matter
• Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)
• Roma Education Fund
• Save the Children
• SOS Children’s Villages International.

The statement was also endorsed by The European Expert Group on the transition from institutional to community-based support (EEG).

If you would like to get in touch with the EU Alliance for investing in children, please contact:

• Katerina Nanou, nanou@savethechildren.org Senior Advocacy Advisor, Child Poverty and Children in Alterative Care, Save the Children
• Enrico Tormen, tormen@eurochild.org, EU Affairs Officer, Eurochild

[1] Commission proposes action to uphold child rights and support children in need – Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion – European Commission (europa.eu)

[2] ‘children in precarious family situations’ means children exposed to various risk factors leading to social exclusion, such as: living in a single-parent household; living with a parent with a disability; living in a household where there are mental health problems or long-term illness; living in a household where there is substance abuse, or domestic violence; children of a Union citizen who has moved to another Member State and who themselves remained in their Member State of origin; children having a teenage mother or being a teenage mother; children having an imprisoned parent.

In light of the proposed list of actions within the Action Plan of the EU Pillar of Social Rights, the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-Based Care has outlined the concrete ways in which the EU Pillar of Social Rights can pave the way for a future in which people in the EU are no longer placed in institutional care settings.

Read the full EEG Position Paper on the Action Plan of the European Pillar of Social Rights.