THE SPACE OF INNOVATION AND PRACTICE ON WELFARE, HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE EDUCATION AND PRACTICE IN ROMANIA AND NORWAY

Abstract

The challenge of continuum change can know variate ways. CompED project, as an example, was focused on opportunities for innovation in the welfare system and health care for the elderly and disabled. Study-analysis aimed and opportunities for involvement of former service users, as equal persons who can provide help (peer support workers) in supporting innovative services based on needs and oriented reintegration, rehabilitation, risk mitigation, respectively towards development. A seminar, two international workshops and a final conference facilitated direct interaction between teachers and students of the two universities, between specialists in the field of social and public health in Romania and Norway, together with the beneficiaries, service providers and peer workers. Thus, they succeeded to develop a common joint research capacities, to discover mechanisms for effective collaboration between the fields of social welfare systems and public health in Romania and Norway. Conclusions raise the challenge to employ peer workers as a new approach that might conduct to significant changes in the welfare system, in education and in the roles of social workers and health service providers. This will create innovation in the welfare and health system and a new dynamic in services for disabled and elderly persons in both countries.