1 | P a g e

Speech to the Conference of Nordic City Missions

24 August 2011

Heather Roy

What are the challenges for diaconal work in Europe in 2011?

(draft)

Good Morning

First of all, thank you for inviting me to address you at this conference. For me, it is always a

pleasure to speak and to meet organisations who are actually doing the work of diaconia and

it is a particular pleasure for me to be here with you,, the Nordic city missions, to learn a bit

more about your work and perhaps how we could work more together.

As you may have guessed by now I am originally from Scotland and as you will know the

City Mission movement has its origins in Scotland, in Glasgow to be precise. I have not

worked with Glasgow City Mission, rather I worked with another organisation that assisted

homeless young people in Glasgow, but the Church I attended was very involved with the

City Mission and still is, and one of the many things I admired about Glasgow City Mission

was how truly ecumenical it was and it seemed, at times, that the work of the City mission

was the one thing that all churches, regardless of background and denomination, could

gather around and support – quite an endorsement – and I imagine it is similar in your cities.

City missions have a vital role to play, as does all diaconal action, in showing the Christian

commitment to care for the lost, the last, the littlest and the least, being able to do it from an

ecumenical basis strengthens this even more and much is achieved, but given, care,

support, practical solutions and sometimes just time to those in our societies who find

themselves in difficulties.

But even though much is achieved, there is still much to do, and diaconal work all over

Europe is beset by challenges as well as opportunities – and I have been asked to share

with you a few of those challenges and perhaps some ideas on how we can meet those

challenges.

So why am I speaking about challenges in Diaconia? Well, as Secretary General of

Eurodiaconia I have the very privileged position and having regular contact with diaconal

work all over Europe and being able to listen to our members and understand what is

2 | P a g e

happening in Iceland, in the Czech Republic, in Armenia, in Serbia… across our network. It

is one of the pleasures of my job that I get to see the actual work happening.

That is what Eurodiaconia is, a network of diaconal social service providers and social

justice actors. Bringing together 34 members in 21 countries in a dynamic, Europe wide

community of organisations founded in the Christian faith and working in the tradition of

Diaconia of whom all are committed to a Europe of Solidarity, equality and justice. And I am

delighted that Oslo Church City Mission became one of those 34 members earlier this year.

Our members come from different backgrounds, churches, diaconal departments of

churches, diaconal ministries structured as separate organisations from the Church,

educational organisations and Christian based but non church aligned organisations but all

are working to provide the services and undertake the advocacy needed to enable the

inclusion, care and empowerment of the most vulnerable and excluded and ensure dignity

for all.

Through the secretariat based in Brussels, at the heart of the European institutions, we look

to bring to decision makers attention the policy changes needed to transform our European

society into places of inclusion and social justice. Such policy work is shaped by our

members, based on their everyday experience of diaconal work.

But we are not just about bringing about transformation through policy changes. No, as a

network we recognise that it is the services and assistance that is being provided every day

that can bring about transformation and therefore much of our action as a network is focused

on bringing members together to share experience and questions on our praxis, our ‘what

we do’. We want to encourage members to be part of a community that shares, partners,

discusses and sometimes challenges with and to each other.

We also think about our diaconal identity – what makes us different from other social actors,

particular secular actors? This theological reflection is also transformation, looking at how

our shared Christian faith transforms the way in which we offer services, support and

assistance.

So this is what we are doing as Eurodiaconia and it is through the networking and

partnership with and between our members that we can see the challenges that our

members face both as organisations and as actors in national and European societies also

facing major challenges. So I want to share with you some of the challenges that are

currently faced by society and by Diaconia and perhaps suggest a few ways in which those

challenges can be met.

3 | P a g e

Firstly, I believe that one of the biggest challenges facing us in Europe today is the Crisis..

Now, at the moment, when we say Crisis we think financial and economic and the social

impact of that crisis. But we are here in Norway where the financial crisis has not had the

same impact as elsewhere and indeed our members in Denmark, Finland and Sweden seem

to have experienced less of an impact than in other parts of Europe. But the economic crisis

is a challenge and I want to come back to this but first I think there is a bigger crisis and that

is the crisis of values we currently have in Europe.

Even before the economic crisis of 2008 the global economic situation was distorted with a

concentration of wealth on one side and widespread poverty on the other. In Europe, and in

particularly the European Union, 17% of the population, that is to say 84 million people live

with the constant risk of poverty, the constant fear that they cannot afford their normal

household bills and costs. Economic growth seems to have benefitted the rich more than

the poor in the world and in Europe the gap between rich and poor has increased in the EU

at a time when we supposedly more prosperous, resulting in rising inequalities in society.

Why?

The transformation from an industrial to a knowledge based model of society has come with

important side effects. The transformation of the labour market has come at the expense of

low skilled, low educated workers and their families. Additionally, such change has affected

the economic foundations of whole regions and former industrial cities have been altered -

necessitating a re-adjustment that has caused ghettoization of areas facing extreme poverty

and greater inequalities. We are then faced with the twin challenge of economic and social

instability and continuing on this path is not sustainable.

Much of this has occurred because of choices we have made for our societies, for our

economies. 25 years of prosperity have made economists, governments and the general

public succumb to a seductive belief in a stable, efficient and self-regulating market where

money generated more money and wealth more wealth.. we have not been thinking ‘How

can we share this wealth around.. we have been thinking how can I get richer… This is what

I mean about a crisis of values. We have stopped thinking about WE and now think only

about the I.. what do I get out of this.. how do I make money.. how do I make sure I am ok?

Indeed, this focus on individual wealth, fuelled by a speculative financial system is a basic

failure that has to be redressed before any economic recovery can be achieved.

4 | P a g e

Today, nearly every policy decision made by our politicians and nearly every life decision

made by individuals is based on economics… Can we afford more hospitals rather than how

to we provide the best health care? We can’t afford to provide basic services to migrants but

we need them to work in our factories to stimulate our industry and GNP. I can’t volunteer

with my local youth organisation because I have to work two jobs to pay my rent. We have

changed our value – and we have allowed our values to be changed – that is our first crisis

and our first challenge. We need to move away from societies that are built on economic

growth and prosperity and see the indicator of well-being as economic prosperity and rather

move towards societies that are built on values of cohesion, solidarity and social prosperity.

The financial and economic crisis we find ourselves reveals how muddled our values have

become. Growth, competiveness and the market are not ends in themselves but means to

improve the well-being of people and to ensure stable, cohesive society. Growth does not

equal progress. We need to use our voices, as individuals, as churches, as diaconia to

protest against this trend of growth at all costs and insist on a re-evaluation of our values as

a society.

So how is this a specific challenge for diaconia in Europe?

Well, the social impact of the crisis has dragged more people into poverty and the situation

has deteriorated for people already in despair. Millions have lost their jobs or face

reductions in salaries and hours. As public finances have been hit hard the social benefits

level has sometimes been reduced and cuts in social spending have worsened the living

conditions for vulnerable groups.

Our members report an increasing number of people needing assistance for indebtedness,

needing assistance to deal with the huge amount owed often through the acquisition of

goods by credit, something encouraged as a contributor to economic growth. Members

have also seen a huge reduction in the amount local authorities are willing to pay for

essential services such as mental health services, elderly care and home care. This means

our members are challenged to decide if they can still offer certain services – morally they

know they are essential but financially they can no longer do it – or not at the level of quality

they believe the service requires.

Members are having to make tough choices – should we stop providing mental health

support – which is costly – so as to provide more debt counselling – which is cheaper? But

who then provides the services needed for those who need mental health support?

Potentially No one.. and so they become more isolated and once again excluded from

5 | P a g e

society? These are tough choices, and diaconal organisations all across Europe are making

them.. but we also need to change the system that has created these choices.

The challenge is not just how we respond to the effects of the crisis through our services but

also how we respond with our voices, with the power and influence we do or could have.

We must speak out about the values we have and the values we need. We also need to

speak out on how to respond to the financial and economic crisis. Billions of Euros have

been spent on bailing out bankrupt banks and now billions of euros are being cut from public

budget as so called austerity measures. So much time has been spent in trying to find ways

to inject ‘confidence’ in the markets. This is in glaring contrast to the little amount that has

been spent on preventing people from the devastating impact of this crisis, and the very little

consideration that has been given to the long term effects of reducing expenditure on social

protection and social services. Indeed, the most effective societies in combatting poverty

and social exclusion are those with the lowest levels of inequality created by redistribution of

income through generous social benefits and adequate access to services.1

Don’t get me wrong, I am not an idealist who thinks that all can be made better by some nice

words and peace and love… we have an economic crisis and actions need to be taken to

get out of crisis but if we do not consider how we got here, and the values that have driven

us, and the social impact the crisis is having and will continue to have for at least the next

ten years then we betray the common good and learn nothing from the crisis and how to

foster social justice, equality and inclusion in our European and global societies. The crisis

is not only about the flaws and wrong decisions with the economic system, but also about

the moral legitimacy of the system and its values..

The social impact of the crisis is on-going and cannot yet be fully measured. In the autumn

Eurodiaconia will be releasing its third report on the social impact of the crisis from the

perspective of our members. We have been monitoring the impact since early 2009, one of

the first European social NGO’s to do so, and we will be looking at how to feed our members

experience and recommendations into policy discussions at European level. But one of the

issues we can see emerging are new forms of exclusion in our societies and the return of

some forms of exclusion that we could have thought addresses adequately by now.

The opening up of Europe, the so called borderless continent – has resulted in a massive

increase in intra-European Union migration (and I include Norway in this as a member of the

Schengen area). Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe many people in the

countries of that area were faced with major socio-economic challenges including high

1 The Spirit Level - Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

6 | P a g e

unemployment, eviction of families from their homes, homelessness, drug and alcohol

addictions and low levels of education. As a result, millions of Eastern European migrated to

western Europe in search of work.

However, although many make a success of their move to Western Europe, there are some

who face socio-psycho difficulties due to already existing conditions or the experience they

have in Western Europe. Many end up in jobs that are not appropriately protected by a

sound legal basis (lack of contract, piece work, week to week contracts etc., lack of minimum

wage, no proper insurance etc.) and in this precarious work situation there is a lack of

security. Often, when redundancies need to be made migrants are the first to be let go and

this can then lead to destitution and homelessness as in many countries EU migrants have

no recourse to public welfare support, at least for a certain period of time.

Often, people who find themselves in such a situation are uneasy about returning to their

country of origin. This could be because of a sense of shame at having ‘failed’ to get regular

employment or because of estrangement from family, criminal activity or other

social/psychological concerns. The lack of recourse to public funds is a sensitive question in

many member states where the social security system is under threat due to austerity

measures and therefore many member states claim they cannot extend the system to cover

migrants.

However, the lack of social security/welfare support that many EU citizens experience and

which leads to destitution for some as migrants can be seen as contradictory to the concepts

of European Free Movement. Such a situation needs a political decision at EU level to

address the question of access to social services and assistance and in the opinion of some

members of Eurodiaconia, also needs financing to be available from the European Union to

cover the cost of supporting migrants who face such difficulties.

But the changes that this new challenge of migration has brought to diaconia in Europe is

not just political, it is practical. There is a changing face of destitution and migration in

Europe. The Berlin City Mission told me recently that in the winter of 2009 -2010

approximately 43% of their users were of non-German origin. During the winter of 2010 –

2011 this had increased to 70%. The Hamburg city mission has reported similar statistics.

Challenges arise on a practical level with language and culture, therefore staff and

volunteers need to be found who share a common language and can understand the socio

cultural backgrounds. Additionally accessing integrated services in the health and social

field in increasing difficulty for migrants who may only qualify for emergency health care and

finally there are challenges with status - in the experience of Berlin City Mission the

authorities regard destitute migrants as tourists, therefore not entitled to continuing

7 | P a g e

assistance in Berlin. Another of our members in Finland have faced problems from the

general public about their assistance to migrants after a local politician in an EU state from

which many migrants come to Finland announced publically that his fellow citizens should go

to Finland as this diaconal organisation would give them free health care.

For our members who are working with undocumented migrants, often those from outside

the European Union there are legal challenges too. Our members in France have reported

on how it is potentially illegal to assist an undocumented migrant - where does that leave

diaconal assistance to migrants? I know that here in Norway you have found a good way to

work with the government and the police when it comes to providing health services to

undocumented migrants – well done. But such an agreement depends on the good will and

understanding of the need for such services and not all political colours are in favour of such

services. Even if they are, we still have such fear of migration that it blinds us to the needs

to provide basic social assistance for basic human dignity such as healthcare, shelter, toilets

and washing facilities while the legal and political process continues. I know that here in

Oslo one of your recent challenges has been to argue for basic toilet and washing facilities

for migrants.. This is basis human dignity and we must speak out to those who would strip

such basis rights from any person.

So diaconia is challenged by migration and what it means for the services we provide and

how it has changed the users of some of those services. But migration also links to another

challenge we currently face and that relates to those who run our services, volunteers and

particularly those who are employed in our services.

City Missions and other diaconal services across Europe have general benefitted from a

healthy number of volunteers, willing to give some of their precious free time to serve others

– and in the European Year of Volunteering Eurodiaconia has been promoting the value of

volunteering in overcoming social exclusion and breaking down barriers in our societies.

However, we still need professional, well trained staff to work in our services and this is

where the challenge can arise. Working professionally in social care is not an attractive

option. Caring for the elderly is not seen as being rewarding or a symbol of intergenerational

solidarity but rather something you do if you can’t find a job elsewhere or if you are looking

for a part time job. It is often low paid and involves anti-social hours… There is also a clear

gender bias in social care. Within the EU, 78% of the people employed in health and social

care services are women and the gender pay gap is greater than in the total economy.

I work voluntarily with teenagers and I have not yet heard one of them saying that they want

they want to be a care worker when they grow up… so the sector is lacking appropriate staff

- but the sector is growing. IN elderly care alone there will be a huge rise in demand in the

8 | P a g e

coming years as our society ages – and so our members need to find staff and so in some

cases need to look to other countries to meet that need…. But what impact does this have

in the country of origin.. are there other care workers able to fill the gaps left by those that

have gone to other countries to work? What about families? Is migration to work in the care

sector leaving a legacy of separated families, children raised by grandparents? Additionally,

we have to be ready to ask ourselves increasingly difficult questions -are we paying migrant

staff the same as we would non migrant staff? Are we recognising training and

qualifications?. And as an organisation based on Christian values where the principles of

diaconia should flow through the ways we deliver our work are we investing the right amount

of time to ensure that our staff understand our diaconal perspective?

Perhaps I slightly digress here but this last point is one of the challenges our members talk

about the most often -what does it mean to provide diaconal social services.. what makes

us different from other, particularly not for profit, social service providers -and how do we

transmit that difference to our staff and volunteers, particularly if they have no ‘live’

connection to the Christian faith.

Some of our members focus on values, ‘converting’ the tenants of the Christian faith and its

expression through social care into values that can be easily understood and integrated into

daily work, others have put in place training methods, others have certain criteria about who

they can employ. At Eurodiaconia we are trying to support our members in this area through

our theological reflection work and have produced several materials relating to this topic

which you can download from our website. We have also created a faith in social care

network that is designed to encourage debate, discussion and exchange among members.

For some of our members the challenge in this area is the relationship between diaconia and

the church – does one need the other? We have some members who have no concrete

church relationship but are Christian based – we have others who have conflict at times with

the Church they are associated with due to differing views on how to address certain issues.

Frankly, sometimes the challenge is due to power and visibility – if the diaconal work is

cutting edge and the church itself is seen as old fashioned there can be tension. If the

diaconal work has a stronger presence in society then there can be tensions. If diaconal

institutions or services have moved away from the church and operate independently what

does that mean for the relationship with the local church in the local area?

Within Eurodiaconia we are also challenged by the emergence of new church expressions,

movements and denominations, sometimes with very strong social justice orientations. Are

we ready to welcome them into our organisation when in the past we have been very much

9 | P a g e

associated with the established, traditional churches of the protestant, Anglican and

orthodox traditions. We have a very wide range of views across our organisations and we

will keep discussing it.

Before I digressed I was reflecting on employing staff in Social Services and this leads me to

my next big challenge for diaconia in Europe today and that is the basic provision of social

services themselves and the legal and administrative barriers that are being put in place.

I may have seemed a bit harsh on the use of migrant employees in our services but I should

qualify that I am concerned about the impact of this practice and not the staff themselves,

and would rather see a care sector that is valued as a place of employment and where

salaries and conditions are fair and just.. but I also think we have to look at the cause of the

situation we have today – diaconal service providers are being asked to provide services at

a low cost because the financing available is low.

In the majority, and for various reasons, local authorities want their social services as cheap

as possible. Although EU public procurement law allows for tendering on quality, it is not

necessarily the reality, partly because not all local authorities understand EU rules but also

because local authorities are interested in value for money – and yes, quality is part of that

but it may not be the overriding concern.

Additionally, the growing private market in care services, particularly residential care

services, means that tender cost proposals can be reduced because transfers can be used

from other income – profit to mitigate loss… not for profit service providers such as Diaconia

cannot do that.. so are at an immediate disadvantage… and when local authorities see the

offer private companies make then it lowers what they are willing to pay for the services…

One of our Swedish members told me about how their local municipality wanted to have an

elderly care home and invited the diaconia to tender for the service. When the diaconia saw

what the local authority was willing to pay for the service they had to withdraw from the

tender as there was no way that the diaconia would be able to provide the high level quality

of care that they believed was needed for elderly people on the budget proposed by the

municipality.

In this European Year of Volunteering we are beset by another challenge and that is the

encouragement in some quarters to replace professional care staff with volunteers so as to

lower costs. Eurodiaconia and its members are absolutely opposed to this and have issued a

statement to the European institutions and partner organisations to this effect. I have said it

already and I will say it again that volunteers are an essential and valuable part of the

10 | P a g e

provision of care and actions designed to overcome social exclusion – but volunteers cannot

replace professional staff and it is another false economy it we think we can do that.

Volunteers are not cost free – management, training, coaching are all needed to ensure a

high quality volunteering experience for the organisation and the volunteer.

Additionally, volunteering is freely given - it is a gift of time, skills and interests. It is not

something to be forced because of a lack of the means to employ professional staff and

become an obligation. Replacing professional staff with volunteers in some services runs

the risk of presenting the social and health care sector as a second rate sector to be run on

the cheap and as I said earlier states must not shrink away from their responsibility of

providing social and health care for its citizens by encouraging the use of volunteers.

A final thought on services. It may not be so relevant for city missions but many of our

members are challenged as to what services to provide.. what I mean by this is the

increasing trend to move away from institutional services – care homes etc. to community

and home based services or indeed from the homeless hostel model to housing first models.

There is a need to move away, and it is happening at a rapid pace, from large scale, de

personalising institutions such as were seen in the communist

times in Easter Europe. But to withdraw all kinds of institutional living, as some actors would

propose, is to deny people the choice in their care solutions We need to talk with users to

identify the types of services they would like to have, the choices there should be and

engage with users organisations to ensure choice is available.

The problem about being asked to talk about challenges is that we are faced with so many of

them because our society is faced with so many of them – and some challenges we don’t

even know yet. And we have political challenges, social challenges, economic

challenges…as well as methodological and theological challenges some that go the very

basis, fundamental questions of who we are and what we do.

Earlier this year I attended a meeting of the Directors of some of the Diaconal institutions in

the Nordic countries, those that had started out from the ‘Mother Houses’ or Deaconess

movement. In that meeting the challenge was raised about the purpose of Diaconia – what

do I mean by that.

Well, is Diaconia here to provide services, perhaps on a contracted basis by local

authorities, or are we here to fill the gaps – to provide the services and care for those in our

society who are not reached by statutory or traditional services, the complex,

11 | P a g e

multidisciplinary approach that can be missing in traditional service settings. This is also a

question as we see the growing private market in social care – private elderly care homes,

private psychiatric care, private nursing and home care.. private addiction clinics… but there

are not really many private homelessness shelters are there?.. or private health clinics only

for undocumented migrants? or private community centres for low income housing estates…

or the private life skills classes for teenage mothers… so who is to meet those needs if it is

not the private market? ,

This is where the question comes in for diaconia -is our role to go out and look for who is

NOT being served – and provide those services and that care -or do we continue to provide

traditional services such as elderly care, sometimes in competition with the private market.

Perhaps you will be disappointed to know that I don’t have an answer to this – I suspect it is

a bit of both – traditional and new services and activities. – and that we have to do some gap

filling – and there are different gaps in each of our societies across Europe. But I think that

like any organisation we need to be constantly looking at what is happening in our societies

and reflecting on our role in that society in the current context.

Here in Norway, you have recently been hit with a challenge, a tragedy that can never have

been anticipated, could not have been seen in context, and one that brought some of the

darkest days that Norway has known., and across Europe we joined together to pray for

Norway and to ask for compassion, reconciliation, transformation and strength. What is the

role for Diaconia in Norway after this tragedy? I cannot tell you that, but I can tell you what

Johannes told me, that the city mission will be committed to its hard work and to build

fellowship and care instead of hate and violence. There are many different ways to do that

and I am sure that the colleagues here in Norway will be thinking of them and we wish you

every blessing as you do so and continue to bring light when faced with darkness.

And our actions are so important, they meet needs, they comfort, repair, reconcile empower

and transform, and they must be context based, based on what is happening now – and

what we see emerging and across Eurodiaconia we are bringing members together to

discuss the how and to share knowledge and experience.

I started this speech talking about the Crisis, about the rising social needs as a result of

financial failure, about the need to rethink our values, to reverse the trend of people working

for the economy rather than the economy working for people, not to make the most

vulnerable pay for the errors of the banks and the super-rich. We are all challenged by this,

and each of you is working on a day to day basis to mitigate the effects on the people you

12 | P a g e

serve. But is that enough? I can stand here and tell you about the problems and challenges

facing diaconia, facing our societies and what we can do about them. Miranda will no doubt

tell you about the challenges facing Roma people in Europe and the increasing isolation,

stigmatisation and exclusion experienced by Roma people… but as I said before it is not

enough. If we do not tell those in power, those who take the decisions that affect people,

particularly the most vulnerable, then we are not meeting our biggest and need and perhaps

our biggest challenged – to change the structures and policies that cause marginalisation,

exclusion, vulnerability and need in the first place. Diaconia is not just here to pick up the

pieces – although we do that very well and it is needed – but we can also be a prophetic

voice, a voice with strength, passion, experience and knowledge of how people have come

to be in the situation they are, about how systems have failed them, of how small changes to

policies or programmes could have a massive effect.

Within Diaconia, we can be afraid to use our voices, to be seen as political, to get caught up

in the sometimes murky and egotistical world of MP’s and Councils..but we must do so…

yes, we are challenged by the changes in society – but we must also be challengers… we

cannot accept societies where the inequality gap is so wide, where our values are distorted,

where access to social security systems is conditional on your productivity, where the dignity

of each person is forgotten. We must work for social justice.

Each person has the right to participate in social, cultural and economic life and this is

achieved by appropriate services that ensure participation and integration but also by the

removal of the structural causes of injustice. That is our biggest challenge in Diaconia, to be

actors in both, to marry care with cause, to be prophetic and to be person focused.

Working together….

13 | P a g e