Questions/Answers

Based on the vision of establishing “a welfare community made by the people, and a community service center that serves the people,” this initiative aims to strengthen the social safety net in local communities and realize the autonomy of citizens. Reaching Out Community Service Center does this by changing the paradigm for providing welfare service to citizens. The formation of a social safety net in local communities refers to the implementation of policies that have deep, positive impacts on the lives of the people. By strengthening the social safety net in communities, we hope to expand the provision of public services, including welfare and healthcare, to more people. In addition, we hope to realize the autonomy of citizens by establishing networks at the neighborhood level and create a welfare ecosystem in local communities by implementing true public-private governance.

This project establishes a resident-centered system for identifying those in need of assistance and creates a community where citizens resolve problems in their communities. It intends to deliver an inclusive and equitable service to all. This project utilizes “Our Neighborhood Action Officers,” who provide administrative services for citizens. In pursuing these goals, we have strengthened public responsibility and provided customized services for the most vulnerable citizens. We have also strengthened the social safety net by encouraging the participation of various local community actors. The tasks of this initiative largely involve providing support for vulnerable citizens through integrated services.

This program attempts to achieve SDG 10. The SMG increased the number of social welfare workers and nurses in each neighborhood by an average of 6.8 people, thereby reducing the number of people for whom each worker or nurse is responsible, from 289 to 126. This helped us identify welfare blind spots and implement “reaching out welfare”. In providing this kind of welfare service, social welfare workers visit poor citizens, the elderly, households with infants, and other people who have difficulty visiting their community service center and provide customized welfare and healthcare services to each individual according to their life stage

Our solution was to turn Seoul into a people-centered city where citizens are able to enjoy their lives. To achieve this, we decided to change the city’s community service centers into places that satisfy the needs of the residents of Seoul. Therefore, we established a beneficiary-centered welfare administration by dramatically increasing the number of workers at local community service centers and began providing universal welfare services customized to the life stage of the beneficiary to at-risk, low-income households, households in welfare blind spots, elderly citizens over the age of 65, and households with infants. Visiting nurses were assigned to community service centers to provide thorough healthcare services for local residents in an effort to narrow the healthcare gap and contribute to prolonging the healthy lives of citizens. In addition, various improvements were made to the community service centers, such as the creation of communal spaces for residents, enabling both the private and public sectors to cater to the needs of local residents. These efforts have established community service centers as essential spaces in local communities.

This initiative is innovative since it transformed the function of community service centers from places where civil complaints are processed to communal spaces focusing on the people and their welfare, establishing a foundation for the provision of universal rather than selective welfare. We made structural changes to personnel and teams, redesigned the physical spaces of the community service centers with a greater emphasis on residents, fostered organizations made up of residents in order to educate them on how to solve the problems in their communities, and developed resources for communities in cooperation with local residents.

The Reaching Out Community Center Initiative was first undertaken by Seoul to improve the existing welfare policy by shifting its focus towards citizens and strengthening public responsibility. We focused on transforming from a resident request-based system to a government identification-based system. In this way, we could realize “reaching out welfare,” provide comprehensive services that meet the needs of citizens, identify and discover citizen leaders, use local community service centers as a platform for discussing the issues of local communities, and provide continuous care services to residents. Through this, Seoul has improved and reorganized its unique welfare delivery system.

The Reaching Out Community Service Center Initiative’s welfare and healthcare service has been praised nationwide for its innovation, effectiveness, and accomplishments. In July 2017, it was included among the “100 Best Government Projects of the Republic of Korea.” Currently, the service is being applied across Korea. With many local governments having already completed trial runs, the service is now being applied to their welfare systems. In 2016, at the request of Beijing, we participated in a design workshop to share our experiences with the “space improvement” project of the Reaching Out Community Service Center Initiative.

In order to be sustainable, it must first earn the trust of the people. We were able to build trust as our officials identified and resolved issues affecting the welfare and healthcare of local residents. As a result, the level of public-private trust increased by 24.5 percent, and citizens were highly satisfied with the friendliness, expertise, communication skills, and efficiency of the community service center officials. Furthermore, this initiative has created a system through which people can search for resources that can be shared at the local community level, which has made this initiative to be assessed sustainable.

Instead of making a small, temporary change to the support system for at-risk, low-income families and other vulnerable groups, this innovative initiative made a fundamental, long-term change to the welfare delivery system. Now, the Reaching Out Community Service Center Initiative is well established. To ensure the sustainability of the initiative, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has created a sustainable training program for government officials consisting of electives that cater to individuals’ needs and capabilities, in addition to the core curricula. Moreover, the Welfare Information System has been improved to provide integrated information on the welfare and healthcare services offered to citizens. In this way, the manpower and material basis necessary for the sustainability of the initiative have been fully established.

Yes

We submit reports on the process and accomplishments of this initiative to the Korea Administration Public-Relations Festa (KAPFESTA), Korea Local Autonomy Exposition, and other policy evaluation events so that the initiative can be assessed and evaluated. In addition, the Seoul Institute conducts performance assessments to evaluate the level of citizen satisfaction with the initiative, public-private trust, extent of citizens’ autonomy, and welfare recipients’ satisfaction with the services they received

Seoul Institute conducted an assessment of the initiative by examining how many times social welfare workers paid visits to citizens, in how many cases welfare was provided, and how satisfied people were with the service, among other factors. The Seoul Institute conducted a quantitative evaluation (i.e. measured quantitative performance) and qualitative evaluation (i.e. gauged the level of qualitative effort assessed by the recipients and people involved, improvement in recipient’s level of satisfaction, etc.). The assessment results included a proposal regarding the mid- to long-term direction that the development of the initiative should take in the future.

After the evaluations conducted at KAPFESTA in August 2017, the Reaching Out Community Service Center Initiative was honored with the presidential award, which is granted only to initiatives undertaken by a local government in Korea. The initiative was also introduced as one of Seoul’s major initiatives at the Korea Local Autonomy Exposition held in November 2017. Certain aspects of the new national welfare system, announced with the “100 Best Government Projects of the Republic of Korea” in July 2017, were based on the innovative Reaching Out Community Service Center, particularly the initiative’s basic elements.

From its conceptualization to implementation, the Reaching Out Community Service Center project has been operated through public-private governance. The governance of the initiative involves: the Reaching Out Community Service Center Steering Committee, headed by the First Vice-Mayor for Administrative Affairs of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and consisting of government officials from each department, professors in the areas of welfare, healthcare, and community, experts from various social sectors, and the Community Service Center Promotion and Support Group, made up of social welfare organizations, community activity organizations, social economic organizations, and ordinary citizens. Experts from various sectors design the content of the initiative, while government officials implement and execute it. The Promotion and Support Group makes efforts to ensure the progress and implementation of the initiative, while assessment organizations constantly monitor the initiative’s results. In addition, we established a joint public-private taskforce to re-establish the role of private welfare organizations. The complementary roles of both private and public organizations were established through the vitalization of public-private, working-level training clubs. Moreover, in the process of expanding the scope of the initiative in each stage, we designed and promoted the initiative based on the results of discussions with the districts and residents.

We learned innovation of the public welfare system is possible only after acknowledging the people’s right to welfare, the diversity of people’s needs, and the national government’s responsibility to provide welfare. We learned we needed to design the initiative through the continuous research and investigation of experts in the private and public sectors and through the investment of materials, personnel, and funds. Seoul has made local communities safer and healthier, improved citizens’ quality of life, and encouraged citizens to effectively release their social, economic, and cultural needs. We have transformed Seoul into a city working with citizens actively to make their dreams a reality.