ENSURE will break the cycle of disadvantage which prevents vulnerable people from being socially included. In doing so it will ensure that this disadvantage does not repeat itself in future generations. Furthermore, as the initial support is drawn from within the local community, it will be there for an individual over the long term & ensure they don’t slip back into vulnerability. ENSURE will create a holistic model: it will provide radical system redesign led by front-line workers to break down existing professional silos as well as a bottom up peer-supporter approach. By acting at both levels simultaneously it will reach people in a timely fashion, reducing the cost to society of the bigger ‘labelled’ problems further down the line, creating less vulnerable communities, providing support where ‘everybody counts’ & enabling positive community development, moving people & their area from a downwards cycle to an upwards one.

1. A new cost-effective, evaluated model to reduce & prevent vulnerability & the gap between people & state services, building on PP6’s highly successful ‘Moms for Moms’ network of peer-to-peer community volunteers & linking 3 groups into a successful solution: professionals, peer supporters & vulnerable people
2. 2 training programmes for: 1) health, social care & welfare professionals/volunteers/NGOs, based around mentalisation (walk a kilometre in my shoes) led by front-line workers; 2) peer-to-peer community volunteers acting as intermediaries between the vulnerable & state services; plus evaluation of these programmes.

These outputs will benefit vulnerable people: migrants & culturally, socially and economically vulnerable individual adults and families & creating healthy communities. In particular trained professionals will be able to work more effectively & the trained volunteers will have opportunities for personal and professional growth.

In 2016, 118m people in the EU (23.5% of population) lived in households at risk of poverty/social exclusion. The 2 Seas area is very affected as the EP states “coastal or border regions tend to present the highest levels of rural isolation...limited transport infrastructure hampers access to employment & the development of social relations, increasing the isolation of certain population groups.”

ENSURE PPs combine a number of disciplines (public health, social care, community centre, HE, charity, employment) in which approaches to the vulnerable are varied. All PPs working together will tackle the common problem of poor communication between professionals & the people they serve, drawing upon existing expertise eg PP6's Moms for Moms, PP4’s use of students supporting socially excluded people into work. It will co-create a model that draws upon what works & identifies & addresses gaps in the current systems that result in many people not accessing the services they need.