FEAD 2018 Catalogue of case studies

Estonia – Monitoring FEAD target group participation in ESF and other accompanying measures Ministry of Social Affairs Images © Stokkete, Shutterstock.com, 2018 WHY? In Estonia, FEAD end recipients face several social, psychological and economic challenges beyond the immediate need for food. These include unemployment, school dropout, alcohol addiction, and involvement in crime activities, among other things. Partner organisations, local government, the unemployment insurance fund and the Ministry of Social Affairs set up a number of accompanying measures to address these issues, but a system to monitor if FEAD beneficiaries were accessing these measures was missing. This convinced the Estonian FEAD Managing Authority, namely the Ministry of Finance, of the need to improve the information available and beneficiaries’ quality of life as a result. WHAT? The project aims at collecting and managing information concerning the participation of FEAD end recipients in the non FEAD-funded accompanying measures offered by various governmental and non-governmental bodies. The FEAD Managing Authority did not want to burden its partners with additional reporting and monitoring requirements. To this aim, in collaboration with the Estonian Statistics Office (ESO), the Managing Authority has developed its own IT system to collect and cross-check data from different registers and monitor FEAD recipients’ participation rates. In addition, the project seeks to improve the information available to the FEAD target group about the activities they can benefit from. The Managing Authority regularly publishes a magazine entitled ‘Abiline’ that is distributed jointly with FEAD-funded food and entails information about the available accompanying measures such as support to go back to school or to enter vocational training. Diverse approaches to supporting Europe’s most deprived: FEAD case studies 2018 22