One citizen, One plan – Guldborgsund, Denmark

In the pilot project “One Citizen, One plan” Guldborgsund Municipality develops and tests methods to empower vulnerable citizens, that have social cases with different municipal authorities. Through a higher degree of involvement, the pilot project aims to empower the involved families to better influence and manage their everyday lives.

Alongside “one citizen – one plan”, that specifically target vulnerable families, we also plan, and test other complementary participatory processes. Through involving and empowering local children, youngsters and other local citizens we aim to further develop liveable and attractive conditions in the neighborhood.

WHY | Purpose

In the pilot project “One cititzen , One plan” we have a citizen-centered and an organizational purpose:

• The citizen centered purpose is to create a single point of entry for citizens with multiple social cases in the municipality to support the target group in getting closer to managing their own lives and getting into education or employment.
• The organizational purpose is to develop and test a common framework for how to organize the work of the municipal support in cases with high complexity and many interdisciplinary efforts and interests.

The purpose of the complementary involvement processes in the area is to test, how art and cultural processes support the development of more attractive living conditions and at the same time can empower the citizens involved to take action in developing their own neighborhood.

HOW | Field of Action

• Through the Liveability project, the goals of the pilot becomes achievable as local stakeholders and partner organisations work together and share their knowledge.
• By means of the project, change agents are empowered to implement public interest design methods to create a learning, collaborative, and participatory administration. After this process and PID methods have been tested in the pilot, they can be extended to other areas of the administration as well.
• Through developing and experimenting new approaches, important learnings and experiences are being gained, that can serve as good solutions to the complex welfare challenges.

WHO | Actors

• Stakeholders from social housing masterplan
• Local schools
• Authority from the employment area (municipality)
• Authority from children and family services (municipality)
• Authority from social services (the municipality)
• Youth education counselling citizens
• Artists
• Citizens and families with multiple social cases in the municipality
• Citizens and volunteers in the neighbourhood

Lessons learned

• It takes time and effort to develop, test and implement new interdisciplinary ways to help vulnerable citizens when it involves many different professions and authority areas in the municipality.
• When we made a real effort to involve the citizens affected by the decisions, it gave them a higher degree of empowerment and ownership to make positive changes in their lives.
• The vulnerable families involved in the pilot project “One Citizen, One plan” have gained more trust and are more cooperative. They have gone from a situation with many contacts and demands from different social workers towards one point of entry with a person who is not permanently attached to a specific authority, but can better see across disciplines, work holistically and involve citizens in influencing their own cases.
• Being open to experimentation in a pilot project and being open to learning from our mistakes gives us a better chance of achieving extraordinary results.
• When we make use of artists, culture and creativity in processes with children and youngsters, we find that it sparks curiosity, motivation, social resilience, empowerment and creativity as they can make use of skills other than purely academic ones.
• Involving citizens in co-designing attractive living conditions in their local area gives positive and good energy.

Potential follow up activities

• The lessons learned in the evaluation of the pilot project ”One Citizen, One plan” will be communicated and spread across departments in the Municipality and provide input for the future organisation of the municipal support to vulnerable citizens.
• The methods and lessons regarding involvement and empowering citizens are relevant activating the involvement of youngsters in democratic processes and giving them the possibility to take action in co-designing liveable conditions in neighborhoods.
• Make use of PID approach and experiences when developing and implementing transformation of harbour area in Nykøbing F.
• Making use of the potenital of culture and creativity in strengthening social resilience.

Poster download:LBY_Testbeds Poster_Guldborgsund_April 2025

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