Social Inclusion Strategies for People with Disabilities in Europe
These strategies address the general population and people with disabilities specifically. The Council of Europe focuses on several areas, including dependency:
- Mainstreaming: This concept, often used in gender equality policies, involves cross-disciplinary partnerships and integrating various European organizations across health, migration, disability, and gender equality.
- Continued development of social cohesion through seminars, expert panels, and socio-demographic studies to address social trends.
- Empowerment strategies are used to ensure the Council of Europe hears and addresses specific demands, promoting citizen participation in social policy design, including for people with disabilities.
The European Social Charter (1996, Art. 15) states that persons with disabilities are entitled to their independence, social integration, and participation in community life. Social barriers are often more difficult to overcome than architectural barriers, leading to social inequalities, low participation, limited education and training, high unemployment, and exclusion.
The Council of Europe recognizes the challenges to autonomy faced by many Europeans with disabilities due to physical and social barriers, including prejudice and stigma. It recommends guidelines for integrating these citizens, ensuring their dignity and rights, and enabling independent living and active community participation.
The aim is to promote social cohesion by combining equal rights and addressing the special needs of these citizens. Recommendation (92) 6 identified the need for policies specifically designed for the cohesion and integration of disabled citizens in European societies. This recommendation is regularly updated to implement new social policies at both European and national levels.
Priorities of social policies include:
- Fulfilling rights
- Eliminating architectural barriers
- Addressing age as a factor of disability
- Autism
- Assessments
- Medical advances
- Community integration
- Eradicating discrimination
- Employment
- New technologies
- Prevention
- Sign language
- Education
- Violence against disabled women
NGOs are involved in these efforts, following mainstreaming and empowerment approaches.
The European Union
European Union countries are developing services to meet the specific needs of dependents, using a mixed public-private approach. The Law on the Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Care for people in situations of dependency aims to optimize and coordinate public and private resources (art. 3).
Governments seek alternatives to reduce the social pressure of demand for high-cost services, maximizing existing resources and including the perspectives of the elderly and their family caregivers, again using mainstreaming and empowerment strategies. The objective is to coordinate social services, health, and human resources in anticipation of increased demand for services.