16.1. Short description The innovative core of NM is combining spatial and urban planning with sectorial policy interventions in a defined territory (see above). Hence, the background approach of NM is mainly about networking among stakeholders and the pooling of local resources within districts with special development needs. The project is financed by a federal-regional…
17.1. Short description The so-called Princesses Gardens in Kreuzberg offer a complex project that attempts to change people’s mind sets on a broader scale than most of the pragmatic solutions in the realm of welfare. As a part of the international urban gardening movement, the highly attractive project pursues an alternative approach how to use…
18.1. Short description The “Job Explorer” project aims to create new ways of job orientation for youngsters by paving personal links between pupils and employers instead of between schools and companies. Hence, the project claims to establish a lasting, trust-based dialogue between tomorrow’s jobseekers and potential employers that could be regarded as innovative. A multiphase…
19.1. Short description “Kreuzberg Acts – entrepreneurship in the district” pursues a twofold approach towards social inclusion. On the one hand, jobseekers and local entrepreneurs, half of them migrants, receive comprehensive consultancy to explore their entrepreneurial potentials or rather stabilise their business. For instance, those interested in founding a start-up are coached by local mentors…
20.1. Short description The project Neighbourhood Mothers bridges gaps within a multicultural but fragmented society, both pragmatically and symbolically. Based on blueprints from the Netherlands and other German cities, the innovative approach is strictly resource-oriented and neighbourhood-related. Basically, the project developed further the idea of intercultural mediators and mentors helping immigrant families with educational and…
21.1. Short description Family centres are a complementary offer to kindergartens and day-care institutions pursuing a more holistic approach. Their innovative feature is to empower families by strengthening their competences instead of providing merely services to them that claim to substitute what the respective families cannot provide. This complementary and holistic approach of “family-minded services”…
The description of innovations presented here can be discussed and developed further in various directions and within various frameworks. Three possible ways – all to be dealt with in the WILCO project – will be sketched here in the conclusive remarks. Social services research: innovations as illustrative examples for a new generation of social services…
39.1. Short description In the summer of 2011, several so-called “work corporations” (werkcorporaties) started operating in the municipality of Nijmegen. These work corporations aim at re-employing social assistance (Wet Werk en Bijstand, or WWB) receivers with a considerable distance from the labour market by offering them a place where they can combine work and education.…
40.1. Short description Housing corporation Portaal, together with the municipality of Nijmegen, started the project “A Future for Everybody” in 2009 because the province (Gelderland) reserved money for the development of “innovative living arrangements” within a larger programme. It was not stated clearly what was meant by “innovative living arrangements”, but the focus had to…
41.1. Short description In 2009, three Moroccan fathers in Nijmegen saw that successful “neighbourhood father” projects were running in other cities in the Netherlands. Together with a local welfare worker from Tandem Welfare they visited such a project in The Hague to see how it was organised. The fathers thought that such an initiative could…