Alentejo – Portugal

Pilot Name: CARE4ALL / BÚSSOLA SOCIAL

Description

The pilot action consisted on the development of an interactive digital platform that includes all existing social responses in Alentejo Central region, aiming at facilitating the search and contact with social care providers.

The digital tool covers all types of social care services delivered by public and private organisations in the region and it is entirely based on available Open Data and Public Service Information (PSI). It was developed as an Internet Portal, intended to be a showcase allowing further development, in the future, such as expanded territorial coverage and increased functionalities.

The aim of the tool is to:

1. Provide guidance to citizens seeking for any kind of social assistance;
2. Help social economy organisations to co-operate and interact on the basis of complementarities and synergies, contributing to structure the regional offer of social care services and to increase efficiency;
3. Facilitate monitoring, coordination and policy adjustment by policy makers and other public authorities;
4. Provide a knowledge base for social researchers.

The pilot action was developed in the context of the Regional Stakeholders Group/Policy Coherence Group (RSG/PCG) created in Module 1 of the project, which is rooted on the Social Network of Alentejo Central (“Rede Social do Alentejo Central”), a cluster composed by organisations involving 4-helix participants.

Relevant decisions in relation to the contents and implementation of the pilot action were taken by consensus, in the scope of the PCG/RSG and the co-creation Working Group, formed from PCG/RSG members. The Working Group closely supported and monitored the development of the digital tool, while the RSG/PCG contributed with advice, testing and final validation of the tool.

Activities

The implementation process comprised the following steps:

1. Establishment of a co-creation Working Group (4-helix approach), to support and monitor the development of the pilot action, involving representatives of 6 organisations that are part of the RSG/PCG.
2. Full identification of possible data sources and data collection. Data on the social care services available in the Alentejo Central region were collected from regional/national Open Data and PSI sources.
3. Definition of technical and functional specifications for the digital tool.
4. Selection and engaging of a software developer company.
5. Outlining of the data model to support the organisation, search and navigation functions to be available on the platform.
6. Development of the digital tool with front-end and back-office components; selection, validation and uploading/publishing of data on the tool.
7. Technical and functional test of the digital tool by the Working Group and subsequently by the other stakeholders (RSG/PCG), allowing the improvement and fine tuning of functionalities.
8. Public launching of the platform. After the testing procedures were completed the tool was released and it is available at https://bussolasocial.alentejo.pt/ (only in Portuguese).
9. Promotion of the digital tool to the target groups (citizens, social care providers, researchers and scholars, public administration).
10. Monitoring and evaluation of the implementation and results of the pilot action.
    
    

Challenges

The major challenge faced during the implementation of the Pilot Action was the need to combine digital knowledge with knowledge on the complexity of the social services system. This was tackled by adopting a diversified composition for the co-creation Working Group, which joined experts in both domains.

Results

A digital platform to access all social care services in Alentejo Central region.

When launched, the platform database included:

• 197 organisations providing social care services
• 351 social care infrastructures/facilities