Polish Perspective on Social Exclusion

1
Polish Perspective on Social Exclusion

• How do social integration programmes work?

2

• Define the term exclusion and areas of its
  occurrence
• Characteristic features of the phenomenon
• Possibilities and limitations of acticities
  realised for the excluded, which are related to
  Polish accession to the EU
• Examples of good practice

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How to define exclusion?

• marginalisation poverty
  exclusion
• European Union other aspects
  of exclusion
• Two main ways of perceiving exclusion
• Non-participation of an individual, a family or a
  specific group of people in social life
• Identification of exclusion with poverty/defining
  it as phenomenon which always accompanies poverty
  

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Spheres of exclusion (1)

• Political
• Institutional
• Economic
• Social
• Neighbourhood and surrounding
• Individual
• Spatial
• Group

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Spheres of exclusion (2)

• Permeation of the before mentioned spheres of
  exclusion is an often observed phenomenon
• There is a strict correlation between
  economically-based exclusion and social exclusion
• There is often no interconnection between
  economic /social exclusion and political
  exclusion (Example former workers of state-owned
  farms)

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Characteristic features (1)

• Poverty, which threatens mostly people excluded
  from the labour market, is the most important
  social exclusion factor (the factor of utmost
  poverty in households with at least one
  unemployed reaches 21)
• The unemployment factor in Poland fluctuates at
  around 18, of which over 50 are long term
  unemployed. 86 of the unemployed in Poland do
  not have rights to benefit.
• There is a major problem of people permanently
  excluded, dependent on social assistance
  benefits as well as participation in different
  programmes aimed at supporting this group.
• A strict correlation between a period of
  receiving different types of social assistance
  and a degree of marginalisation is observed. In
  principle the longer one uses social assistance,
  the more one is threatened with marginalisation.
  This gives a bad mark to the effectiveness of the
  social assistance in counteracting exclusion.

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Characteristic features (2)

• There is a major group of so-called poor
  employed
• Poverty is strictly correlated to living in small
  towns and in the country (18.5 of people living
  in the country face utmost poverty)
• Children are particularly threatened with social
  exclusion
• Homeless are the group the most threatened with
  social exclusion
• A number of people departing from penitentiary
  institutions is particularly high in Poland,
  being ca 30 thousand persons per year

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Characteristic features (3)

• Disabled are ca 14 of the whole Polish
  population, only 14 of them is employed.
• In Poland unlike several other EU Member States
  social exclusion of refugees is not a major
  problem.
• Social capital and civic behaviour factors are as
  low for the excluded as they are for the whole
  population.
• Social exclusion is not a permanent feature
• There is, however, an issue of permanently
  excluded and dependent on assistance

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EU impact

• Forthcoming accession of Poland to the EU was a
  major reason for elaboration of strategic
  documents in the domain of social exclusion.
  These documents not only diagnosed the
  phenomenon, but also included suggestions of
  active tools to combat the problem.
• It was only, however, the necessity to develop
  programme documents required for the use of EU
  structural funds that became the driving force
  for elaboration of specific solutions on the
  governmental level, as well as attributing
  appropriate financial resources to them.
• Labour offices, social care institutions and
  NGOs possibility to use the resources of the ESF
  is of particular importance for establishing new
  initiatives, whose aim is to provide assistance
  to the excluded by means of using active tools to
  counteract their problems.

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Effectiveness of policy

• It has to be noted that effectiveness of
  policy for counteracting exclusion is not only
  dependent on preparation of governmental
  strategies or operational programmes, nor it
  depends on availability of financial resources.
  Polish experience shows that other factors, such
  as
• organisations and institutions working for the
  groups threatened with marginalisation
  preparedness for co-operation
• flexibility in action
• play the key role in effective combating
  exclusion.

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/-

• Majority of Polish institutions is neither used
  to nor prepared to establishing partnerships for
  realisation of specific projects.
• Inflexibility in developing projects is another
  major problem.
• The situation is different as far as NGOs are
  concerned. Possibility to finance their
  initiatives from the ESF resources makes them
  optimistic about development and realisation of
  their interesting and innovative ideas.
• The use of community support will benefit the
  development of NGOs sector in Poland and will
  result in several interesting projects.

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Good practice? (1)

• Aim to re-integrate socially
  disabled youth by means of their participation in
  professional dance course
• Realization The interest in the
  project was significant and the participants were
  content.
• Their engagement in learning how to dance was so
  great they even started to win awards in dancing
  competitions
• Success (?) None of the
  participants became independent enough to live
  his own life unassisted.
• But for the project and the huge support it
  offered, sport success of its participants would
  not have been possible.
• Should the project be terminated, its
  participants would not have been able to develop
  their career any further.

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Good practice? (2)

• Aim to provide support to women
  finding themselves in critical situations.
• Realization A hostel for lone
  mothers was established.
• Success (?) Unfortunately, there is no
  chance for major change in position of any of the
  hostels clients after termination of the
  project.
• The projects clients often move with their
  children from one hostel to another countrywide.
  They know their conditions and regulations and
  have learned how to make use of them.
• Other women started to treat hostels as real
  homes. The hostels abnormality became their way
  of life.

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Good practice? (3)

• Aim to facilitate re-gaining
  of economic independence of former state-owned
  farms
• Realization Beneficiaries of the
  project were supported in founding and running
  their own farms.
• Success (?) The idea of the programme
  was to suspend free market rules for a period of
  time.
• It did not teach how to fight mechanisms of
  social exclusion, but how to live in favourable
  conditions.
• Results of the project were easy to find once
  the project was terminated, its beneficiaries
  turned out to be as helpless and dependent as
  they used to be before it started.

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Conclusions (1)

• None of the above mentioned projects does
  re-build permanently capacities of the
  marginalised to live independently, nor it
  creates conditions for direct and independent
  participation in society.
• Each of the programmes was based on temporary
  suspension of open, market-oriented society rules
  and as long as these rules remained suspended
  participants of these projects were able to
  maintain their contacts with the society
  surrounding them.
• However, when the support was ceased, it
  turned out that the success of the projects was
  highly deceptive and the projects participants
  soon returned right to where they had started
  from.

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Conclusions (2)

• Key condition of social integration programmes is
  their continuity.
• There are people in Poland, who are incapable of
  facing the basic rules of functioning of a modern
  society on their own.
• Full integration of certain groups particularly
  affected by exclusion, has not been created in
  Poland so far.
• This is not only a Polish problem, but a wider
  one.
• Therefore, exchange of experience between
  partners from all over the EU should lead to
  establishment of a truly effective approach
  towards social exclusion.