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L E A R N I N G V I S I T

During 12 days in June 2013 a learning visit to Sweden was organised for 16 representatives from the social care sector in Al-Qaddissiyah and Duhok, Iraq. They met their Swedish counterparts to exchange experiences and identify areas of interest for further development. The visit was organised within the Governance in Social Care project, which is financed by Sida and implemented by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions together with SKL International and its local partner IRFAD. For further information please contact SKL International: anna.backmann@skl.se or IRFAD: sarmedmoh@yahoo.com.

Background 2

Purpose 2

Participants 3

Program 4-15

Conclusions and way forward

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Acknowledgements 17

Content

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BACKGROUND

The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) has been granted funding from Sida to work in partnership with two governorates in Iraq – Al Qaddissiyah and Duhok - starting from November 2012. The implementing partners are SKL Interna-tional, a company owned by SKL, and IRFAD, a re-search and consultancy organisation based in Bagh-dad.

The aim of the partnership is to support strength-ened governance and management in the social care sector by addressing issues of service provision and service quality, accessibility, accountability, re-sponsiveness, effectiveness, and coordination-cooperation between legislative and executive powers at sub-national level.

Through the support from the project, selected social care stakeholders in the governorates are working to realize result strategies that they have themselves de-fined. Two ‘levels’ of sub-national governance are involved:

Decision making bodies, i.e. council commit-tees and provincial administrations

Organisation and management of social care services by departments and units of Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA) direc-torates of social welfare and special needs/the disabled.

The project takes its starting point in the federal prin-ciples stated in the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq and in the mandates of sub-national government established through other legislation and regulations. It is planned with reference to the framework of the Republic of Iraq National Development Plan (NDP) and in particular the Strategic Government Program of Iraq Government 2011-2014.

The project is a pilot intervention that is limited in scope but results, work processes, and learning

achieved within the project are likely to be relevant also for other organisations at governorate level as well as for central government in Iraq.

PURPOSE

The purpose of organising the learning visit to Swe-den was to offer an opportunity for persons in lead-ing positions in the social care sector to gain knowledge and strengthened understanding about:

How social care is organised and managed in Sweden, the role of local governments

Examples of types of support / services of-fered to disabled, socially vulnerable groups,

Examples of preventive social work

How social care in Sweden is collaborating and communicating with other authorities and or-ganisations when planning and implementing work.

The purpose was also to establish relations with Swe-dish counterparts in the social care sector and identify concrete possibilities for further cooperation, and for the governorates, SKL International, and IRFAD to come together and plan activities for the next-coming period.

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PARTICIPANTS

For logistical and practical reasons the visit was divided into three parts with delegations from the two gover-norates having a joint programme in the middle, but worked separately before or after. The following individuals took part in the learning visit:

The Iraqi delegations were accompanied by Mr Gunnar Andersson, Mrs Anna Backmann, and Ms Hoda Saad of SKL International.

9-16 June

Mr NASHAAT Moham-med Lafta Al-Ghezi

Al-Qaddisiyah Governorate Deputy Governor

Mr SARHAN Hasan Sar-han

MOLSA directorate of special needs, Director

Mrs WIDAD Hatem Hashim

Governorate Council, Al-Qaddisiyah Head of Human Rights Committee

Mr ALI Badr Ghazi Albadr

Human Rights Office, Governorate Coun-cil, Al-Qaddisiyah

Office Manager

Mr ALI Sameer Younus Al-Qaysi

Social Care Department, , Al-Qaddisiyah

12-19 June

Mr Adam BEHZAD Duhok Governorate Deputy Governor

Mrs FAIZA Abdulwahid Ali

Zewa Center for Child Rights protection Center Manager

Mr BAYAR Hadi Salih Directorate of Care & Social Develop-ment in Zakho District (Duhok)

Social Research Unit

Mr JVAN Hashim Ab-dulbaqi

Hewa Institute for Deaf and Dumb, Duhok

Psychological Rese-archer

Mr DALKHAZ Rashid Ali Hasan

Directorate General of Care and Social Development, Duhok

Centers Supervisor

Mr HUSSEIN Ali Assad General Department for Social Care, Duhok

Director

Mrs MUNA Abdul-wajeed Yaseen

Governorate Council, Duhok Social Welfare Committee

Ms RASHA Talib Wahab IRFAD Coordinator

9-18 June

Mr SARMAD Moham-med Abdulameer Al-Khazraji

IRFAD Project Manager

Mr HAYDER Jabbar Kadhim Alghurabi

IRFAD Process Facilitator

Mr QAYSSAR Malik Is-mael Al-Waely

IRFAD Process Facilitator

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PROGRAMME

The programme was designed to answer to the different result strategies defined by the governorates and also to provide an overview of the wide variety of services offered in social care in Sweden. Particularly strong focus was put on services for the disabled, socially vulnerable children, cooperation between authorities, and family violence.

A large part of the programme took place in Göteborg where delegations spent two days in the districts of Västra Hisingen and Angered respectively. Apart from this there were activities organized in Botkyrka, Dalarö, Huskvarna, and Stockholm.

Following is a short description of the main sessions organized and snapshots of some of the events.

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June 9 Arrival delegation from Al Qaddissiyah and Baghdad

June 10 Västra Hisingen, Göteborg

Torleif Petterson, District Director

Lena Säljö, Social care manager

Welcome to Västra Hisingen, introduction to Göteborg and the District of VH, organisa-tion and management of the District in general and social care organisation and services in particular. The session also included a presentation by ‘the service group’ followed by coffee/tea served by them. The service group consists of a group of individuals that are far from the working market (due to disability or long term illness e.g.) that are engaged in day activity in the social care department. The session ended with a tour of the Social care offices + small talk with staff.

Torleif Petterson, District Director

Lena Säljö, Social care manager

How is Västra Hisingen social care sector governed? Managers and politicians of Västra Hisingen presented how decisions are taken, implemented, and followed up. The session also consisted of a discussion about the division of roles between politicians and officials and how long-term development of social care is defined. Three politicians from Göte-borg participated: Dario Espiga, Municipal councillor (S), Birgitta Simonsson, Municipal councillor (M) Özgur Tasbas, Västra Hisingen District Committee (MP)

Hosted by Göte-borg

Welcome dinner with social care professionals and politicians of Göteborg

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June 11 Västra Hisingen Göteborg

Ylva Morén. Social Care Manager and her colleagues

Visit to Jättestenskolan. Session on integrated social work, SSPF – cooperation in pre-ventive social care between Social Care, School, Police, and Recreational Services, school teams working with support to socially vulnerable children, the project Vingen – working to facilitate the integration/re-integration in schools and working market of socially vulnerable youth, and how to work through the method BBiC (Childrens needs in the center). The delegation was met by a large and engaged group of professionals including social care managers, social researchers, and field workers.

Johan Hademalm, unit manager at Lyse Daglig Verksamhet

Visit to day activity center for disabled in Torslanda to get insight into this type of ac-tivity. The visit consisted of two parts where the first part focused on the activities of-fered to people with moderate disabilities, such as gardening, crafts, music, horse riding etc.

The second part consisted of a visit to a day care for people with severe disabilities, a brief presentation during the tour was held regarding the function of the day care and methods used when dealing with this category, for example the ‘dream room’ that is designed to give the disabled a calm and peaceful ambiance and the gym where they get to do some special exercises in order to strengthen their often weakened muscles and the ‘tropical room’, a room that is aimed to be used during the cold winter, it is well heated and decorated with tropical plants, green paintings of forests covering the walls, a small aquarium etc.

Lena Naperotti, Principal at Svartedalsskolan and her colleagues

Visit to Svartedalsskolan to learn about the concept of ‘integrated school for children with special needs’, ordinary schools that offer education for children with special needs in both separate and integrated classes.

An introduction was held by the Principal and several teachers on the curriculum (The curriculum for the ones with special needs is an adapted version based on the ordinary curriculum) and pedagogical learning materials followed by a discussion.

Finally, the group got to take a tour around the school to see some of the classrooms and ‘after school care’ activities.

Solveig Svensson, Social Care Manag-er, and her col-leagues working with PAX

Meeting with the project PAX, aimed at supporting women and children, and some-times men, who are subject to violence in their relationships. The delegation got an overview of gender development in Sweden. The project PAX is working with women who are subject to violence and sometimes have moved to emergency centres. One unique feature of the approach is that social care staff also contacts and meets the man to discuss what happened and see what type of support the family need. Studies have shown that violence goes down radically after the social care department has had con-tact with the man in the relationship.

Farid Basill, Social Care manager, and his colleagues in the Swedish Iraqi social workers network

Social work in Iraq and Sweden. This was an informal discussion (in Arabic) between the delegation and Swedish-Iraqi social workers working in Göteborg. The purpose was to discuss methods, attitudes towards social work and explore areas of common interest.

Ricardo Hansson, supervisor in Field group City.

Visit at Social Resurs. A small team from the delegation visited social resurs in the evening to get an introduction to their night-time fieldwork in the areas of drug abuse, homelessness, prostitution, juveniles, preventing crime etc.

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June 12 Al-Qaddissiyah: Travel from Gothenburg to Stockholm

Duhok: Arrival in Stockholm

Birgitta Ohlsson, Operational Manager

Bruno Sten-marker

Visit to Origo resurs, a social enterprise working to support individuals for the integration in the working market. Persons supported by Origo resurs often have a difficult back-ground with trauma, disability, or long-term illness. They work with three types of activities – ‘close to life’ dialogue, meaningful work tasks, and personal support. Origo is cooperating with the national unemployment agency, social security agency and surrounding municipali-ties.

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June 13 Stockholm area

Pernilla Vera Jr, Social Care Man-ager, Botkyrka Municipality and her colleague from the Swe-dish police

Visit to Botkyrka municipality to learn about cooperation between social care and police in order to prevent crime and other social problems.

The municipality and police is organising ‘social task teams’ that, with consent from the family and the youth, works to prevent youth of entering/re-entering into criminal activities.

The task teams work with creating relations locally, mapping networks of persons, organis-ing meetings with network and youth, and offering family treatment and other support measures.

Ismael Kamil, Social care Com-mittee of the Riksdag

Visit to Swedish Parliament. Ismael Kamil (FP) held a discussion (in Arabic) about the Riks-dag, how social policy is defined, and way to monitor and follow-up implementation at local levels. The delegation was given a tour of the Riksdag and had the opportunity to sit in dur-ing voting in the chamber.

Dinner with embassy of Iraq, hosted by Chargé d’Affairs, Dr Hikmet D. Jabou and first secretary of Iraq Embassy in Stockholm, Mrs Ban Ahmed Fadhli

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June 14 Stockholm area

Martin Dworén, Public Affairs. Fryshuset

Visit to the Non-Government Foundation Fryshuset, often referred to as the largest youth cen-ter in the world. It is located in an old factory of 24 000 square metres on the south side of Stockholm. Fryshuset runs several schools and programs for vocational training, seminars and conferences, courses in theatre, music, and sport as well as hosting events, concerts, parties and discotheques. It is famous for its social work, engages in training police, social care departments, and politicians in issues of youth and social work. The delegation got information about several of Fryshusets social projects such as Lugna Gatan (Easy street) and Barn till Ensamma Mam-mor (Children of single mothers).

Municipali-ty of Han-inge:

Ann-Britt Öhrstig and Tomas An-dersson, accessibility developers

“Beachparty” is a collaboration between six municipalities in the Stockholm area. The purpose is to offer young people with special needs a unique day of social and physical activities. At Da-larö, south of Stockholm they can try out climbing, judo, ping pong, train dogs, be a DJ, get their nails fixed, play various computer games and – socialise with other kids their own age.

The group got to meet practitioners as well as young people, and also to try out some of the activities.

Mikael Fridebeck, chairman of the committee for culture and leisure and Jan Molin, director for sports and leisure guided the delegation.

Workshop and dinner. Summarising the week so far and for Al Qaddissiyah group to express their impressions and conclusions before departing home.

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June 15 Free time

Guided tour of Stockholm

Boat trip to Fjäderholmarna

June 16 Al-Qaddissiyah: Return to Iraq

Duhok: Travel to Gothenburg by train

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June 17 Internal planning and follow-up session SKL International/IRFAD

Visit to Social Care in Angered

Arne Wiik, director for the unit for care for individuals, families and people with special needs

Evy Almstrand, head of unit

Farid Basill, director of the unit for liveli-hood support

Introduction to Angered Social Care

The group was initially welcomed by Mr Farid Basill, who hosted the 2-day visit. Apart from a thorough presentation of the history of the development of the district, the dele-gation got to ask every possible question about the Swedish system and the organisation of Angered in particular - in Kurdish.

The clear division of between political committees and the executive/administrative functions was emphasized, and discussed in detail.

Coffee was served by a member of the team from “daily activity”, who explained to the group what she does and how much it means to her to be important to her colleagues.

Farid Basill, director of the unit for liveli-hood support

Walk-around in the offices of the Social Care

The entrance to the offices of the Social Care in Angered is found to the left of the gen-eral reception. By entering here, the delegation immediately got a sense for the environ-ment that the social workers of Angered are working in. In each floor, the group got to meet a cross section of the passionate social workers that prepare cases, support individ-uals and develop new methods. The social workers they met were all very passionate, regardless of background.

Ellen Dziukowska, manager of Idé-verkstan

Kenneth Petters-son, director of unit for daily activities

Visit to Idéverkstan, example of daily activity for people with special needs in Angered

For the manager of Idéverkstan it´s self-evident that the best way to find a meaningful and stimulating daily activity for the 19 colleagues working there is to respond to their own needs and to the clients´ demands. They work mainly with textiles, embroidery, knitting, simpler furniture renovation and skin care products. They even have a small store where the products are sold.

The foundation for the methodology is that everything that happens should be:

Meaningful to the individual

Developing the ability of the individual

Stimulating

Stimulate connection with others

Most participants are there on a daily basis, some not full day but all of them agreeing to the terms of the “contract”, which gives them a social connection they otherwise would not have.

The director of the unit for daily activities also explained the various levels of daily activ-ity that is on offer, depending on the readiness and ability of the individual to partici-pate. The cooperation with the private sector is working very well, with some supermar-kets offering daily training. Angered is working actively to involve the public institutions much more than today.

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June 17 Continued

Nian Ali, social work-er + col-leagues from Ar-betsförmedlingen

Arbetsförmedlingen is the largest placement service for work in Sweden.

The “Job corner”, which is managed by the Social Care in Angered, although located at Ar-betsförmedlingen, has a special focus on groups that normally have problems accessing the job market, due to special needs.

When a person applies for financial support through the Social Care, they are automatically di-rected to the Job Corner. The Job Corner offers support from a coach, who analyses the abili-ties of the client and establishes a contract with him/her. The contract is an agreement to par-ticipate in various job seeking activities, every day. The coach then supports and motivates the client and makes sure that s/he is active.

The participation in the Job Corner program is followed up by a social worker and has a natural connection to the payment of support grants.

Having three major government/municipal agencies cooperating (Arbetsförmedlingen, Social Care in Angered and the Swedish Social Insurance Agency) is quite unique and makes it easier to assist the individual in finding a way to support him/herself.

Hosted by Göteborg

Joint dinner with social care professionals of Göteborg

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June 18 Visit to Social Care in Angered

Eva Svedes-tad, chair of the social care com-mittee in Angered (S)

Meet the politician

In a discussion with the chair of the social care committee, the delegation found other perspec-tives to the division of roles between the political sphere and the executive. This was given primarily through concrete examples of how the four fundamental laws of social care are en-forced, and also on the budget process for Angered, as part of Gothenburg.

Lena Dahl-strsöm

Emma Pettersson Maarofi

Assessment of needs

The four fundaments for dealing with people with special needs are:

Socialomsorgslagen (law on social care)

LSS (law on support and service for certain groups)

LVM (law on care for people with abuse)

LVB (law on care for youth in distress)

Two social workers from Angered explained the process of assessing peoples’ needs according to LSS, which is the “newest” law in the social care sector, “only” 20 years or so.

They explained that generally, they don´t assess peoples’ degree of disability, but rather how much difficulty they have in maintaining a qualitative life.

There are various ways that you can receive support as a beneficiary of LSS, like; daily activity, personal assistant, contact person, support family etc.

Within Angered there are 14 “Lena and Emma” and they each have approximately 50-70 cases each that they prepare and follow up. .

Elisabeth Johansson

Domestic violence

In 2001, a major survey concluded that every 10th woman in Sweden was living with violence in their home, and one in three said that they had been exposed to domestic violence earlier. This means that 1.700 women in Angered are living with violence in their home environ-ment…

Mrs Johansson who is working with a project on domestic violence defined this as being physi-cal, psychological, financial as well as material abuse. Women and children are the most affect-ed, although old people and men are also targets.

By mapping the prevalence in Angered is the project hoping to focus on finding out more about who is a victim, what type of violence and what do people know about the support that is offered. Unfortunately they support that is being offered is seldom accepted by the people that need it most, something that the delegation from Duhok concluded is the case also in their own environment.

Farid Basill Social workers´ session

In an informal discussion (in Arabic) between the delegation from Duhok and Swedish-Iraqi social workers from Angered, the peers got to discuss their realities and explore areas of com-mon interest.

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CONCLUSIONS AND WAY FORWARD

The approach of the visit was to offer as much exposure as possible to practical social work. Presentations were held to a minimum and personal contacts encouraged.

Some of the observations made by the delegations can be summarized as;

If you can see beyond the difference in the systems, it´s easier to pick up methods and approaches used

The organisation of social care in Västra Hisingen can be an interesting model for Al-Qaddissiyah

Day activities for people with special needs is very much a question of attitude, not always money

The public institutions are role models that should be in the forefront for embracing people with special needs in their daily work, also in Iraq

A special day for young people with special needs (like the one at Dalarö) shouldn´t be so difficult to arrange, we have the localities, all we need is to take a decision

“Social police” is an interesting concept that can be explored for Iraq

The integrated work SSPF – cooperation between authorities – has its embryos in Iraq and can be de-veloped further

We need to be pragmatic about what is possible in Iraq, but always remember that for each success, there are many small steps to be taken

There is a lot of good written materials that we should tap into and here the Iraqi/Arab diaspora in Väs-tra Hisingen and Angered are a great resource

Preventive work is important, as the Arabic proverb says “Prevention is better than treatment”, we have seen a lot of that here and can get better at prevention activities

There is a need for continued networking with peers, with potential for mentorships/internships

Sharing learning from Sweden visit to a broader group – internally and publicly – plans for radio broad-cast and newspaper articles in Al-Qaddissiyah

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We, SKL, SKL International and IRFAD, express our sincere gratitude and warm thanks to all the receiving organisations and individuals listed above. We and our Iraqi partners were extremely impressed by the well-prepared visits and the professionalism of the organisation and staff we had the opportunity to learn from.

We are particularly grateful to Lena Säljö and Farid Basill for their time and passion.

Most of all we were touched by the humanity, warm welcome and sincere interest from the wide range of peo-ple working in the social care sector met during the visit. You made a huge impression on us and the Iraqi del-egation who especially appreciated the respectful engagement, the genuine dialogue, and mutual interest for exchanging experiences.

Acknowledgement also goes to Sida for supporting the project and providing the resources to make this suc-cessful learning event a reality.