Promoting local neighbourhood services

The classic employment market offers little or nothing to the long-term unemployed. This lack of employment excludes them. Local neighbourhood services are not a magic formula but they can create new forms of employment, preferably for the inhabitants of the neighbourhood while also improving the quality of life of the neighbourhood. Local neighbourhood services take the capacities of the local inhabitants as the starting point and respond to collective needs in the neighbourhood. They produce considerable social added-value. By establishing local neighbourhood services, social contacts and networks are re-inforced.

There are three key concepts for establishing local neighbourhood services: participation and empowerment of the long-term unemployed; partnerships between the local authority, residents and other organisations; appropriate finance and management systems.