Webinar (2): How is support for people with disability organized – experiences from the Nordic Region

The Nordic Welfare Centre has initiated a network on disability research and practice, across the Nordic Region. Both researchers and practitioners in the field are part of the network. As part of the network, VIVE the Danish Center for Social Science Research is co-organizer of a series of webinars. The first webinar in the series “How is support for people with disability organized – experiences from the Nordic Region" will be held on June 16, 2022 at 1.30-4.00 p.m.(CEST – Copenhagen and Oslo time). The webinar will be text-translated live.

The first event in the webinar series focuses on how responsibility for providing support for people with disabilities is organised between different levels of government, and which forms of support are developed and prioritized, within the different systems, including what level of government is responsible for financing support. Three distinguished scholars present experiences and perspectives from Iceland, Sweden and Norway. A panel comments on and discusses the three presentations. The whole event is scheduled to last 2½ hours including appropriate breaks.

Programme

Welcome and introduction
Keynotes speeches: Trends and themes concerning organisation of services for people with disability

Rannveig Traustadóttir, University of Iceland: “Organising and implementing disability rights in Nordic welfare states”

Johanna Gustafsson, University of Örebro and OsloMet. “Whose responsibility? Organization of support for people with disability in Sweden.”

Jan Tøssebro, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “Communalization of service provision: From ideology to governance. Norwegian perspectives”
Panel discussion: Current debates about placement of responsibilities concerning people with disabilities (panellists to be announced)
Closing remarks, thank you and goodbye

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About the webinar series on disability research and practice in the Nordic Region

Background

At a normative level, there is great similarity within the Nordic Region in terms of the rights for people with disabilities provided in legislation, concerning for example mobility and autonomy. At an institutional level, however, there is a great variety, both between and within the Nordic Region, in how support for people with disability is organized, how service is delivered, and how needs for specialization of skills and services are balanced with needs of normalization and integration of support functions. This variety at the institutional level is a source of ‘Nordic surplus value’ of knowledge and experience that, when shared, can inspire development of practice and policies. For example, there are many ways in which personal assistance is offered in the different regions, and they change over time.

The Nordic Welfare Centre is a central hub for attaining a surplus value of knowledge about what these differences entail for citizens, practitioners and policymakers. Therefore, the Nordic Welfare Centre sponsors a webinar series on disability research and practice, in the period 2022-2024.

Aims

The aims of the webinar series are:

To facilitate sharing of knowledge and experiences concerning disability research and practice, of both national, regional, and municipal levels
To integrate perspectives of users of disability services, practitioners within services for people with disabilities, as well as researchers and policymakers.
To complement existing and long-running Nordic initiatives within as well as outside The Nordic Welfare Center (such as the Nordic Network on Disability Research) with a particular focus on highly specialised services and service needs

Topics

The webinar series will cover a range of topics: Organization of support systems – who has the responsibility?; inclusive schools and the organization of individual support in schools; service delivery systems – public, private, and non-profit; measures of quality, progress, and user satisfaction; governing and coordinating professionalization and specialization; comparing personal assistance and related support functions.

Format

Each webinar will cover one main topic by two to three keynote speeches by researchers or practitioners, followed by questions and comments from a panel, mainly by practitioners from user organizations, or from local, regional or state-level government functions.

Organizers

The webinar series is organized by a range of organizations, under the auspices of the Nordic Welfare Centre, including THL – The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Socialstyrelsen - Sverige, Helsedirektoratet-Norge, Socialstyrelsen-Danmark. The main organizer is VIVE – the National Center for Social Science Research in Denmark.