IAS in a nutshell

Timing 

24 months : 01/12/2018  - 30/11/2020 

Aim  

The aim of IAS is to exchange ideas and inspiring practices between policy, practice and research on improving accessibility of integrated services for (vulnerable) families with young children. The exchange of ideas and inspiring practices happens on different levels: 

(1) Relation professional/services – families: 

• Support professionals to embrace diversity and to handle sensitive to all kinds of families (e.g. by creating open meeting places); 
• Increase the competences of professionals to interprofessional collaboration and leadership to work participative with families in a context of diversity; 
• Support the social work approach as a framework to empower families; 
• Integration of multiple services (e.g., social, health, ECEC, NGO) in order to respond to the needs of families. 

(2) Role Policy Makers: 

• Support policy makers in looking for relevant indicators and outcome results on an improved accessibility of integrated services, taking the families and their perspectives into account; 
• Guarantee the effectiveness of the services, in the way that they are accessible for all. 

IAS wants to elaborate these two levels on local, national and European level. 

IAS  provides a network of policy makers, practitioners and researchers in:  

• Belgium (Flanders), 
• Finland,  
• Norway, 
• Slovenia,  
• Poland. 

IAS aims for developing and sharing expertise between policy makers, practitioners and researchers in Belgium, Poland, Finland, Slovenia, and Norway on the general topic “integrated services and accessibility”, and specifically on: 

• The importance of creating open meeting places (family centers and hosting in public spaces, street work) in order to reach (out to) (underprivileged) families.  
• Interprofessional collaboration and leadership as crucial aspects of how well the family centers function. 
• The social work approach as a framework to empower families and the realisation of social rights. 
• Integrating social, health and early childhood education services and NGO actors in order to respond to needs of diverse families and children.

Design

1. Developing a shared vision and framework

2. Document analyses and focus groups 

In each partner country, document analyses on relevant practice and policy documents and focus groups are held with practitioners, policy makers, researchers focusing on accessibility and integrated working in general, and the above mentioned topics in specific. In these focus groups the context, the state of play and the future plans are discussed.  

3. International IAS meetings

In each country a 3 day meeting (called the IAS-meeting) is organized, combining study visits to inspiring practices, with discussion and working tables on a theme linked to the above mentioned topics.   

IAS platform 

The explorations, discussions and reflections on the context, the state of play and the future plans of integrated working in each country provides input for the online IAS-platform, with inspiring practices and recommendations for policy and practice at local, national and European level.  

More specifically the online IAS-platform consists of 

• The shared vision and framework on accessibility of integrated working. 
• An overview of the country reports with document analyses on relevant practice and policy documents and the input of the focus groups. 
• Recommendations on three levels: for policy, research and practice.  
• An overview of inspiring practices in the different contexts. 
• Links to interesting international websites, documents,... 

The main strengths of this design are:  

• Involvement of different actors: researchers, practitioners, policy makers – variety of partners each with valuable expertise; 
• Different types of integrated working. 

Task and responsibilities

For some tasks a partner is assigned as coordinator: 

• Kind en Gezin (Belgium) is responsible for the general project coordination of IAS; 
• VBJK (Belgium) coordinates the development of guidelines for the document analyses and the focus groups; 
• THL (Finland) coordinates the dissemination of IAS; 
• University of Torun (Poland)  and Mala Ulica (Slovenia) coordinate the IAS-platform; 
• Tromsø University (Norway) coordinates the evaluation of IAS. 

Next, each partner is responsible for the IAS-meeting with study visits and working tables in their country. This implies:  

• The preparation: searching and supporting inspiring practices, preparing a country guide, but also practical issues. 
• The set up: working methods, the input, …  
• The follow up: the report of the IAS meeting, input for the IAS-platform with inspiring practices from all participants, and policy and practice recommendations. 

At the kick off (21-23/01/2019) the tasks and responsibilities will be discussed and fine-tuned.  

Partners

Belgium: VBJK(dit is een externe link); Kind en Gezin(dit is een externe link); EXPOO

Finland: THL(dit is een externe link)

Norway: University of Tromso(dit is een externe link)

Poland: University Mikolaya Kopernika(dit is een externe link)

Slovenia: MALA ULICA(dit is een externe link)

Budget

• Each partner receives 2 types of budget:  

   

  • Budget for the IAS meetings. This amount depends on the number of participants to the visits (it is now calculated on 4 persons) and the distance (more or less than 2000km1) 
  • Budget for project management and implementation: 6000€ (or 250€/month) for the partners, 12000€ (or 500€/month) for the project coordinator (i.e. Kind en Gezin)