European Disability Expertise

Ad-hoc theme: Framework for Social Services of Excellence

EDE

BACKGROUND

The European Disability Expertise (EDE) started in July 2020 as the successor to the Academic Network of European Disability Experts (ANED, December 2007 - May 2019). It is managed by the Human European Consultancy and is now in its second contract period (December 2021 – June 2023). Under this contract, as with the European network of academic experts in the field of disability (ANED), data on disability across the EU will be assessed. Magdi Birtha is one of the senior experts in the EDE network.

AIMS

The general purpose of the European Disability Expertise (EDE) project is to collect, analyse and provide independent and scientific data and information relating to national disability policies and legislation and their relationship to policy and legislation at EU level, as well as on the situation of persons with disabilities. The information and data collected is intended to support the European Commission by:

providing information relevant to EU-level disability policies and activities (e.g. for the European Semester Cycle);
feeding policy and legal information useful for the preparation of future disability policies and for mainstreaming disability in forthcoming initiatives under the Commission;
raising awareness of disability issues;
contributing to an informed dialogue with organisations of persons with disabilities and with EU Member States; and
contributing to the legal reporting obligations arising from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD).

ACTIVITIES/MILESTONES

Task 2.4 Ad-hoc theme: Disability-relevance of quality assurance systems in social services – Darja Zaviršek (task leader) and Magdi Birtha (rapporteur) - synthesis report published in November 2023

Good quality social services can support and enable the development of the person's autonomy, promote conciliation of work and family life for relatives, protect fundamental rights and facilitate social inclusion of persons with disabilities. For this purpose, the study gathers evidence on the existence of frameworks, definitions and assessment systems and procedures used to measure the quality of social services used by persons with disabilities in Member States to improve their quality. Promising practices that could be scaled up in Member States and areas for improvement are identified. The key findings shall also give a reflection on how much are the principles of independent living and the UN CRPD provisions included in the quality assessment processes of social services in EU Member States and on whether a focus on persons with disabilities is present. It is also important to reflect whether national quality frameworks for social services have already taken into account the European Commission's 2010 document entitled ‘A Voluntary European Quality Framework for Social Services’.