The International Foundation for Integrated Care’s Solutions service has embarked on a major project supporting Estonia’s new Social reforms, awarded and funded by the European Commission’s Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS).
The Estonian Government introduced new policy settings for local government reform in January 2018 which are being applied to their 79 local governments. This represents a large scale and complex reform.
The project is working with Estonian central agencies including the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Social Insurance Board and a selected pilot group of local governments and municipalities with five main areas of focus:
- building a strategic framework within which to place the inter-related parts of social service, rehabilitation, education and health;
- identifying a suitable set of measures for social care at a national level;
- identifying and mapping pathways to help understand and map information and the journey for clients;
- creating a dataset to support the new social reform –bridging policy, planning and delivery; and,
- identifying suitable funding models and incentives for integration within the new environment.
This is an exciting and ground-breaking project with a joint team of experts sourced from IFIC’s international network working alongside the Estonian team and with the support of the European Commission’s SRSS team.
It is a great opportunity to be working with a country that is progressive and focussed – and already a recognised leader in digital citizenship on the world stage.
The project team at the September launch– Tallinn
The project launched in September and will run for 18 months.
There will be an opportunity to show-case this at the upcoming ICIC 19 conference in April in San Sebastian where there will be a one-day workshop dedicated to effective financing of national integration projects – and using this as a case study and a great opportunity to see, hear and contribute to the thinking.
Estonia is in its centenary anniversary year of independence. A coincidence of timing and perhaps fitting – as this project, too, is about supporting independence – helping support people to independent and manageable lives.
IFIC Solutions
Integrated Care Solutions © is a service that helps support IFIC’s international clients in the effective design and adoption of their integrated care programmes. We achieve this by bringing together a bespoke group of IFIC’s own content experts with our growing global network of members, associates and knowledge partners. By working with our clients to understand their aspirations for integrated care in their own context, Integrated Care Solutions© provides tailored support that help to advance strategic thinking and translating that into implementation, enabling sustainable service transformation at local, regional and national levels.
Andrew Terris is a senior associate for the International Foundation for Integrated Care.