Workshop: Whole-of-Society approach

On the 28-29 of March 2023, the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca (Romania) will host the Fourth Includ-EU workshop with a focus on Whole-of-Society approach: cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder collaboration for inclusion.

The opening and roundtable (28^th of March, 14.00 – 15.45 CET) will be streamed at this Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89579433612.

This event will gather participants from the Netherlands, France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Romania. Politicians from the national, regional and local level, civil-servants, NGO representatives, social workers and innovators will discuss:

• what are the policies and practices which enable the much sought-after multi-stakeholder collaboration?
• How to encourage cross-sectoral collaboration?
• What is the role of local and regional authorities in this context?

The integration process connects a wide range of practicalities as well as both compulsory and optional administrative procedures in sectors as diverse as health, education, housing, work. Failure to comply with procedures can have dramatic impacts for individuals and families. At the same time, it is often difficult for users to understand how the different procedures connect, which are the most urgent or obligatory ones, and where to find the relevant information. On the side of administrations or non-governmental organisations, understanding the circumstances and needs of migrants to provide adequate services can prove a daunting exercise. This leads to considerable frustration, for users and for organisations involved in the integration process.

In Cluj-Napoca, the One-stop shop for migrants emerged as a response to this need, expressed both by migrants and authorities. One-stop shops are services designed following a holistic approach: concentrating services in one location can help newcomers understand what services are on offer and improve collaboration between providers. However, this approach shall be tailored to the specific context and be interactive. Roadblocks to implementing genuine one-stop shops vary, from different levels of government not seeing eye-to-eye on migration and integration to a lack of funding and limited pre-existing partnerships between very different institutional stakeholders (for example, the police and NGOs). This model may therefore be complicated to implement for cities with a relatively nascent integration infrastructure.

The workshop will be an opportunity to learn more about the Cluj-Napoca’s one-stop shop pilot, which proposes a replicable model for other authorities.

It will be an opportunity to hear from other partners how they facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration, and how they include the voices of migrants, for the design of integration policies and practices, and beyond, to support or amplify active participation in society.

This workshop aims to:

• deepen and discuss the one-stop shop model;
• give visibility to inclusion policies and practices shared in the context of the project and which can be of use to stakeholders across wider Europe;
• strengthen the collaboration between partners, support them in mobilising both their local and international networks;
• facilitate the exchange of policies and practices for inclusion between local and regional stakeholders in Europe;
• encourage the development of new collaborations between local and regional stakeholders.