Social Services against New Employment (SANE)

Initiated by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (MLSP) and implemented with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the project aims to develop and test a viable operational modality for the decentralisation of social services in Bulgaria. The project provides access to the Social Assistant service to vulnerable people (permanently disabled or seriously ill people) while generating employment to persons as Social Assistants, who after an appropriate training provide social services to those in need. As providers of these services the Project outsources NGOs which hire unemployed to work – following vocational training – as social assistants. A Methodology for provision of the community-based Social Assistance service has been elaborated whithin the framework of the project. In 2008, an information system for monitoring the implementation of the national quality standards of the community-based Social Assistance service will be developed. It is expected that the project will contribute to the development of a long-term national policy, supported by an appropriate legislative and financial framework to guarantee the transition from institutionalized social services towards community-based social services.

(Last updated: January 2008)