Millions of citizens receive social aid in Ukraine: families in critical situations, orphans, persons with disabilities, pensioners, the homeless, infirm people and other underprivileged categories. In order to make the assistance of these people more accessible and efficient, social services should not wait for these vulnerable layers of the population to address them, but rather look for them first. This is presupposed by the reform of the social services, which has been elaborated in Ukraine for many years. Participants of the round table “The Future of Providing Social Services in Ukraine. New Challenges and Practices” organized by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy have recently discussed the best and most efficient ways to carry out the reform. Ukrainian and international experts took part in it, including the representative of the Council of Europe in Ukraine Karl-Friedrich Bopp, the professor of the University of Kent Brian Munday, the director of the project “Public Initiative — Time for Mercy” Maryna Yermilova, the head of the center for legal assistance “Public Defender” Alla Mukshymenko, and others.
The participants of the round table pointed out that the first steps were taken in 2004, when the Law of Ukraine on Social Services was adopted. Three years ago the Concept of Reforming the System of Social Services by 2012 was adopted; it dealt with making such services as close to the citizens as possible, providing social help based on the principles of adequacy and individual approach, and delegating responsibilities pertaining to social services to local authorities and involving public organizations in them. However, no substantial changes happened since the concept was adopted. Experts of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy are confident that both the citizens and the state would benefit from these reforms.
“It is obvious that the state alone is no longer able to cope with its task to provide social protection and quality social services to all those who need them. Introducing new approaches to the system’s organization is necessary. Giving autonomy to each level of self-government is the first essential condition to form the market of providers and the package of social services, taking into account the needs of a concrete area. Partial delegating of responsibilities to the local authorities can both improve the quality of services and increase their variety, because the local community knows their needs and the needs or their social groups the best. Recently the role of non-governmental organizations has grown considerably. They currently provide those social services, which the state cannot provide due to its conservatism and lack of flexibility. Local authorities could delegate a part of their responsibilities in this sphere. But, unfortunately, they can’t do it because the mechanisms required for such a cooperation have not yet been elaborated,” said Liudmyla Skoropada, an expert on social policy issues. “In part, everything depends on financing because both the state and local budgets lack money for social services. In addition, the state finances only some social services, mainly of institutional type — orphanages, territorial centers, etc. If we start the reforms immediately, each citizen will feel positive changes. First, they will have more access to social services and they will be able to choose both the services and their provider. This will help improve the quality of social services in the future. Because when there is no competition, no choice, you address either state or boarding institutions, or wait for a worker from the territorial center to visit you, so one doesn’t expect much quality in this case, and getting at least some help becomes even more important.”
Establishing a single structure that would plan, coordinate and control the work of all social services is yet another step that must be taken for us to have a true reform of social services. The fact is that a branched system of social institutions functions in Ukraine: boarding houses of different types, social service institutions for elderly people, people with disabilities, homeless, while six different ministries are responsible for their work, each for their own institutions. Ukrainian and foreign experts believe that this scattered system of social services provision is outdated and does not reflect current needs.
“One of the objectives of the Council of Europe’s cooperation with Ukraine is creating a social services market for the Ukrainian population, which would be controlled by a single institution,” singled out the representative of the Council of Europe in Ukraine Karl-Friedrich Bopp. “It is not the case in Ukraine so far, therefore the main feature of the social services system is centralization on the state level and the exclusion of non-government organizations, in particular, non-profit businesses. However, the state alone cannot handle this problem and ensure a full and quality social protection of the population. This is especially true if the state does not take into account the role of the non-government sector and consider the opinion of public organizations.”
Thus far reforming the social services market is very slow. Meanwhile, some local authorities do not wait for the adoption of appropriate laws and develop their own social programs. And they are quite successful. For example, a multidisciplinary brigade providing palliative assistance to sick people (most of them will live not more than a few months or years) functions in the capital’s Pechersk district based on the district state administration. Traditionally, such services are provided by hospices. But in this case a doctor, nurse, psychologist or social worker visits these citizens at home a few times a week. The Institute of Palliative and Hospice Assistance of the Ministry of Health recognized this alternative way of providing services to be more efficient than the ones currently used, and eight to ten times cheaper. The Uman Department for Labor and Social Protection shows a good example of how one should take care of socially unprotected citizens.
“We have 12 programs for providing social services, starting from birth. Our workers visit children’s hospitals and review the list of newborns. If parents didn’t have time to apply for the one-time payment at childbirth, which is 12,800 hryvnias, social workers will do it for them,” said Halyna Kucher the deputy mayor of Uman. “Reviewing information about citizens’ incomes, we determine who has the right to a subsidy and collect documents for them. Looking for people who need social support and helping them without waiting until such citizens come to us — this is the principle guiding our work for many years now. Any citizen may call our department and order medicine, apply for a subsidy, or ask for hot meals. By the way, we also provide these services in case of emergencies, for example, fires, when people are outside with no place to live and no food. You will not see homeless people or panhandlers in our city, they all live in special centers for temporary residence. If a disabled person needs to get to a hospital or other state institution, we will provide special transportation for them. On the whole, our department provides over 70 kinds of social services, we could expand our work if there were no gaps in the legislation on cooperation with public organizations, which provide social services to the population the same way we do.”
Local authorities demonstrate that they are ready to undertake the responsibility for social aid and do it well. The only thing remaining is to adopt appropriate amendments to the Law on Social Services. The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy promises that this issue will be solved before long. According to the Deputy Minister Ihor Lushnikov, the Cabinet of Ministers will soon discuss amendments to some laws, including a provision on the delegation of responsibilities of social services to local authorities and cooperation with non-governmental organizations. However, this is not the first time officials have made this promise.
