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On July 18th Ruse hosted a Regional Meeting of Social Services on the topic “Current challenges in the development of social services”.

The meeting was organized by Ruse Municipality and National Alliance for Social Responsibility.

The “Battenberg” Hall of the Regional Historical Museum gathered over 50 participants, representatives of social service providers from Ruse and the region, “Social Assistance” directorates, representatives of the Ruse Municipality, RSPB and the Agency for Quality of Social Services.

At the beginning a welcome speech was given on behalf of Mr. Pencho Milkov – Mayor of Ruse Municipality by Ms. Milena Vlahova – Director of the Social and Health Activities Directorate of the Municipality.

Welcoming remarks to all participants were also made by Mr. Georgi Georgiev – Chairman of the National Alliance for Social Responsibility, in which he emphasized that this was the first regional meeting after the National Forum of NASO on Social Services held a month ago in Golden Sands. He also noted that the municipality of Ruse is an example of European dimensions, given that almost 100 percent of the services are outsourced to NGOs.

A presentation was also made by Ms. Snezhana Georgieva, Chief Expert of the RSPD.

Ms. Vlahova presented the current picture of social services in Ruse Municipality, emphasizing that much more efforts should be made to expand in-home support services for users.

Ms. Diana Petrova – Director of the Control Directorate at the Agency for Quality of Social Services presented in her speech the role of the new agency – monitoring, control, but also methodological support for all licensed providers of social services.

The Community Support Centre of the Municipality of Borovo presented their good practice for working with children and families through a concrete case.

Good practice was also presented by the Equilibrium Association – one of the 8 Family Type Accommodation Centres for children and young people with disabilities in need of permanent medical care. The focus was on the love and care for some of the most severe cases of children with multiple disabilities and poor life prognoses and the role of the parents who the service encourages to be by their children’s side all the time. More than 14 children who have been through this service have been returned to their biological families after the necessary medical manipulations and interventions, 9 children with disabilities have been placed in foster care and 3 have been adopted.

Finally, the participants agreed that there are still many challenges ahead of the system – the entry into force of the National Social Services Carat, the new integrated information system, the new regulation on staff workload and the new way of financing social services, which should be a fact in 2025.

The moderator of the meeting was Elena Petkova – Programme Director of Equilibrium and representative of NASS for Ruse.