New Forms of Participation in the Social Welfare in the City of Barcelona

A new form of intervention is emerging in local welfare systems. This new way requires a change of attitude and involvement from citizens, public authorities -at all levels- and private organizations. It can be defined as a "social innovation” in the sense of the implementation of an idea that is new and that breaks with the prevailing routines and structures in a given system or setting. “Social Innovation” is widely used from many academic, political and social perspectives. No wonder that, in a context of uncertainty and transformations, becomes essential to search for new policies. In particular, in the field of social welfare the experimentation of new policy proposals and social practices has begun in a lot of countries.

The paper will analyze new citizen participation forms in the field of social welfare in the city of Barcelona from the theoretical perspective of social innovation. The research is the result of work carried out within the European research project WILCO (Welfare Innovations at the local level in favour of cohesion).

The paper has three parts. First, there is the discussion of the concept of social innovation and proposes a methodology to use them. Secondly, following the conceptual and methodological proposal presented, discuses one policy of the City Council of Barcelona, the program: "Citizen’s Agreement for an Inclusive Barcelona". This program is an example of Social Innovation that increases the cooperation and democratic participation. Finally, it presents challenges and opportunities of this municipal policy for new models of work on local Social Welfare.