Sermersooq: Serious failures in new disability initiative

The aim of introducing a so-called One Door model, which was supposed to improve access for the disabled to the municipality, has failed and, at worst, made life more difficult for the disabled.

This is evident from an evaluation that the Administration for Children and Family will present to the politicians in the Committee for Children, Family and Education, which is meeting tonight.

Criticisms

The list of highly worrying criticisms regarding the outcome of the new organization in the municipality is long and testifies to an administrative initiative that was not well thought out and far from living up to the vision that there should be only one unified entrance to the municipality that could take care of the disabled throughout their life.

At the time, the initiative in the capital municipality was otherwise presented as visionary, where it would put an end to the fact that the disabled had to run amok between the different administrations to get the rightful help.

Specifically, case processing for children with disabilities was moved from the Administration for Children and Families to the Administration for Welfare and Labour Market in order to ensure a holistic and coherent approach for families with children with disabilities – from childhood to adulthood.

Appendix removed from agenda

Two employees were in this connection transferred to the Welfare and Labour Market Administration, where they would handle both disability and child/youth cases.

Despite the transfer, the tasks have not kept up and have created a long list of problems, as is evident from an appendix that the municipality has chosen to remove from the committee agenda, as Sermitsiaq inquires about the precarious case.

The appendix is ​​therefore no longer publicly available, but Sermitsiaq can pass on the serious points of criticism:

Case of suicidal thoughts

Under Item 4 – rejection of cases – a single case is highlighted, which is based on a child who has suicidal thoughts:

“An example of this is a report of a child who has stated that he or she wants to commit suicide. This was assessed as an impulsive action related to the child’s diagnosis and not as a current suicide plan. The disability caseworker refused to act on the case, citing that it was a social matter. The family wanted to discuss the possibility of a visit to a residential institution for children with disabilities during the conversation about the report. The caseworker therefore had to subsequently pass the conversation on to the Disability Department, which will process the request for residential placement. This practice means that several caseworkers now have to be involved in one family’s case, which both requires more resources and involves a loss of continuity and knowledge about the individual family.”

Municipal Director: We have failed

Municipal Director Ole Jakobsen acknowledges to Sermitsiaq that the municipality has far from solved the task well enough.

- We must state that the OneDoor initiative has failed. We must and must ensure proper conditions for our weakest – the disabled, states the municipal director, who still has a vision that the disabled should not be confused between different caseworkers in different administrations, resulting in incorrect decisions.

Ole Jakobsen states that it is a complicated task – “a really difficult task”, as he puts it – to set up the system so that a caseworker can take care of the disabled from childhood to adulthood.

- We have not given up and are in the process of finding a new model. We are therefore in dialogue with the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the intention is to have a theme day where we will look at how we can solve this challenge, states the municipal director.

When asked why the attached material has been removed from the municipality's website, which contains a recommendation on how to solve the problem, Ole Jakobsen says:

Wrong that the matter is on the agenda

- In my opinion, it is a mistake that the matter has been put on the agenda, as we are still in a process where we have not yet found the right model. It is important that we deal with the problem in the right way. We owe that to the disabled.

The attached material lists a large number of personal cases that reveal serious problems in the case processing. The municipal director believes that the examples have not been anonymized well enough, which has meant that Sermitisaq - out of consideration for those affected - will not publish the detailed descriptions that reveal a large number of serious failures on the part of the municipality in recent years.