Even if its creation is recorded for 2025, the scope of the future INTS still remains to be constructed. Social actors are pleading for an “operational” organization, in connection with those in the field, open to beneficiaries and… equipped with the necessary means to carry out its missions.
After six months of prefiguration mission led by State Administrator Anaïs Bréaud, the missions of the future National Institute of Social Work (INTS), whose inauguration is planned for 2025, are becoming clearer.
Included in the recommendations of the White Paper submitted in December 2023 by the High Council of Social Work (HCTS) to the social ministers of the time, the future Institute displays an ambitious project. That of being on the one hand a resource center for students, researchers, employers and social and medico-social professionals and on the other hand a training organization for executives in the public and associative sector. But also a place for reflection, exchanges and experiments around good practices and means to be implemented to improve the attractiveness of social work professions at a time when they are struggling to attract candidates.
“Bringing social work out of its insularity”
On paper, it will not be a question of limiting its scope to that of a simple think-tank, a role which could however be devolved to the HCTS (High Council for Social Work) which will work in close collaboration with the INTS. . And no more to do “yet another Théodule committee where sterile intercourse is practiced”warns Jean-Luc Gleyze, president of the Gironde departmental council and boss of the left-wing departments within the Departments of France.
“INTS must be a place to promote social work professions, but also an organization that takes social work out of its insularity and beyond its scope”summarized one of the working groups brought to work on the scope of the future Institute on November 5 at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese).
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To this end, its sessions should, according to the wishes of its forerunners, be open very widely to a varied public and welcomed with a mix of profiles: senior executives from the three public functions and the associative world, magistrates, social partners, elected officials, journalists , professionals in the field… without neglecting the main stakeholders, namely the people being supported themselves. “This will be our challenge: to succeed in strengthening the role of social workers and beneficiaries in decision-making” indicated Agnès Canayer, Minister Delegate in charge of Families and Early Childhood during these meetings.
This fear of an Institute too closed to only experts also finds echoes in the territories, where we are toying with the idea of departmental variations of the INTS. “The Institute aims to be operational in its capacity to create a link between the national and the local”judges Jean-Luc Gleyze. According to its wishes, this will must also translate into a certain autonomy of action and decision of the future body : “if we have to wait each time for the legislator to intervene, many actors will be late in responding to emergencies. The INTS must be given the responsibility to make its recommendations land.”
Stop-and-go
A laboratory for reflection on the attractiveness of professions, a player in the animation of social work, the INTS will also have to look into the construction of training modules intended for decision-makers.
Charlotte Parmentier-Lecocq, Minister Delegate in charge of Disability, also entrusted her with a draft roadmap, reaffirming her appetite for the validation of acquired experience (VAE) like, before her, Catherine Vautrin, the former Minister of Labor, Health and Solidarity. “The vision of classical training is evolving. Bridges between professions are multiplying. The challenge is to offer a range of rich careers”she announced. These career choices could also emerge as soon as possible since the minister pleaded for more synergies between National Education establishments and those in the health, social and medico-social sectors in order to raise awareness among students – including those in a situation disability – to these professions.
However, beyond these practical aspects, it will also be up to the future Institute to put into music the recommendations of the White Paper in terms of promoting innovative professional practices or responding to the challenges of the sector on global support, shared skills or the debureaucratization of the functioning of the actors. A final objective shared by Nathalie Latour, general delegate of the Federation of Solidarity Actors, who calls for a reduction in the burden of reporting and evaluations which weighs on field associations dedicated to disability, to the fight against poverty and exclusion, early childhood or care.
“The INTS will not be able to resolve all the issues, but if it could look into the study of new, more flexible management methods for associations, that would already be a big step. Today, these actors are subject by the State to bureaucratic constraints equivalent to those weighing on the public service, which contributes to making their action invisible and harms the attractiveness of their professions.she explains.
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The projects are therefore in place, but funding must still follow. Without a clear vision of state solidarity policies, the INTS risks having difficulty finding its place in the social landscape. “However, it has been several years since we have had this vision. The field of social work is only approached from a budgetary perspective”regrets Nathalie Latour. A situation which, according to those on the ground, subjects the sector to a constant stop-and-go movement, exhausting the troops and discouraging vocations…
