SOCIAL AND WORK INTEGRATION POLICIES IN ITALY – CEIS GENOVA

Aldo Castello
Manager of Centro Studi CEIS Genova

The Italian national policies for social and work inclusion are characterized by a range of differentiated initiatives and tasks, both for user targets, for areas of intervention, and for the type of instruments used. The objective of these policies is to promote active inclusion interventions, aimed at gradually achieving economic autonomy, together with income support measures for individuals and families.

Furthermore, interventions to fight poverty and social exclusion are promoted and implemented by several subjects that are headed by different levels of government (national, regional and local).

In regards to recent regulations, we will illustrate the active policies on our territory today, such as:

• The New Social Insurance for Employment (NaSPI), a monthly unemployment allowance for workers with a dependent employment relationship who have involuntarily lost their job.

• Universal Basic Income (RDC), a support for families, including singles, whose goal is to respond to basic needs through an economic benefit together with mediation in the reintegration in the employment world and social inclusion.

• Independent life, a project aimed at people with severe disabilities, in which for each person a specific project is defined by an Individualized plan of assistance (Pia) designed with the active participation of the disabled person eventually supported by his family or by an external support operator.

• DGR 283/2017, regional guidelines for paths aimed at social inclusion, autonomy and rehabilitation that provide the possibility of activating, on a personalized project in favor of people followed by public social services and/or by the competent health services, paths regulated by convention.

Genoa and social policies

In Genoa there is the UCIL, «the Job Insertion Coordination Office» which manages and coordinates, in a network with the local employment promotion agencies, job placement projects in support of vulnerable groups and the “Targeted employment office» that uses a series of technical and support tools that allow people with disabilities to be adequately assessed in their working abilities and to assign them to a suitable place.

UCIL

In particular, the UCIL of the municipality of Genoa supports the paths of people with psychiatric problems (BUS Program), adolescents in difficulty (through the Centers for Work Education), unemployed women with disadvantage problems (PAGA Project), drug addicts in the rehabilitation process (PASS project), foreign minors (PIL Project).

 

UFFICIO DI COLLOCAMENTO MIRATO

With the national law 68/99 «Regulation for disabled people’s right to work», the Office promotes the inclusion and integration of disabled people in employment through support services and targeted placement.

The persons to whom the law is dedicated fall within the so-called protected categories, or subjects with recognized disabilities to whom an employment quota is reserved in order to promote the labor integration of the disabled, a quota which varies according to the number of employees inside a company. But in order for the company to be able to proceed with the inclusion of the protected categories within its workforce, the disabled worker must register with the targeted employment lists at the employment center nearest where they live.

There is an increased tension towards the marginalized members of society with strong repercussions on reception
for those coming from foreign countries

WHAT DOES CEIS GENOA DO?

In 2014, with the help of the Italian Government and the Liguria region, CEIS has brought forward  two projects to reintegrate social partners financed by FSE funds (European Social Funds). They promote a very simple thing: an operational coordination of all public and private bodies operating in the sector of work and dependencies.
Specifically, the TIR (Integrated Table for Reintegration) set the following objectives:

• To be a reference point for potential guest companies of the reintegration paths;
• To share skills in order to create an effective management system for reintegration processes;
• To build a model of common evaluation of the results of the insertions and analysis of trends in collaboration with the Regional Epidemiological Observatory on Addictions;
• Expand the number of companies involved.

CEIS operates on two levels:

• A technical level: for jointly taking charge of the subjects, sharing the orientation and evaluation tools, data collection, resource sharing;
• A strategic level: for the strengthening of the partnership, consolidation of the areas of intervention, setting up of an effective external communication, with particular attention to the planning and the business areas.

Integrated Table for the socio-working reintegration of subjects in charge of the Dependency Services of the Genovese ASL3

The quality of the tool lies in the advantage of working together towards a single objective, combining effectiveness and efficiency. There are 13 partners, both public and private, and the coordination of the table, initially carried out by CEIS Genova, is currently rotating within the partnership. The table continues its work today, even after the European funding has ended.

CONCLUSIONS

We are in an extremely complex moment for our country; we have gone through a severe economic crisis a few years ago and, when even now that in other countries there seems to be an end to this stagnation, in our country the policies fluctuate and seem to follow irrational moods more than  targeted programming.

In this moment, new tools are emerging whose effectiveness in fighting the severe poverty of the disadvantaged population we will only know only in a few months. At the same time there is an increased tension towards the marginalized members of society with strong repercussions on reception for those coming from foreign countries.

We are in the middle, trying to maneuver our boat, trying to carry on what our founder Bianca Costa started over 40 years ago: go the extra mile, without noise, silently, but step by step without stopping, with the help of those around us who share the same passion: solidarity towards the most needy.