Responsive Social Services. Citizen-Led Actions and Voices on Changes Needed in Helping Systems.

This paper analyses original data from six European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Poland, Portugal and Romania) about citizens’ actions to bring about changes in social services working in the fields of mental health, disability, child protection and youth at risk of exclusion. Data was gathered in 2024 as part of the Horizon Europe project: “Increasing the responsiveness of social services to citizen voice across Europe”.

We used a qualitative approach to explore the perspectives and actions of citizens who want to contest inadequate practices, lack of government systems reactions, or slowly changing social policies. Based on selected interviews as examples (out of 120 gathered in total), we show evidence of diverse approaches used by citizens to organise collective or individual actions aiming at changes in these policies, systems and practices. From protests, and petitions to social media campaigns and private initiatives they advocate and educate and challenge how the systems should work. We draw on Amitai Etzioni’s concepts of active societies and their transformation towards responsive societies and flexible systems (1968) and Manuel Castells’ networks of outrage and hope (2012) to show how the democratisation of social services is both a long-term process and a contemporary dynamic of citizen emancipation (Wojciechowska, 2019). The paper also explores the emerging use of technology, particularly social media, for public calls to action. Our findings highlight the increasing importance of open, honest communication between citizens and services, emphasizing the need for a shift towards more trust-oriented attitudes, with reduced fear of judgment on both sides. The discussion section will focus on the trends and factors that either hinder or facilitate this change.