Social:Aide en milieu ouvert

From HandWiki

Aide en milieu ouverte (abbreviated AMO) or open youth aid is a form of publicly supported youth work in the French Community of Belgium. The actions carried out are preventive in nature. The help provided is non-binding (in other words a young person cannot be forced to take part in it) and confidential. Prevention occurs within their day-to-day environment. Open youth aid aims to support young people's projects and to assist them in the difficulties encountered, whether personal, administrative, academic, legal or financial. There are more than 80 AMO initiatives in Brussels and Wallonia.[1]

Approaches and working methods

A wide variety of approaches and methods exist. Some (like Dynamo) prefer working on the streets, others are specialised in a particular issue (such as young people's rights (in French droit des jeunes, which is a service dedicated to legal issues), while others adapt themselves to the needs and to the population of the municipalities where they are established (like the CLAJ). Many different approaches and methods currently exist, without a doubt as many as there are open youth aid because each one of them has their own particularities (like SOS Youth which offers non-mandated emergency shelter solutions, unlike the emergency centers which receive young people under a court order (Centre d'Accueil d'Urgences). Open youth aid initiatives work along two main lines: individual assistance and community support. Open youth aid previously also worked on collective action but this aspect was relinquished to youth, sports and cultural centres. However, open youth aid can still organise collective actions that have an explicit community purpose (and can focus on one or more approaches).

Legal framework

Every form of open youth aid is ruled by the decree of 18 January 2018 relating to the Code on Prevention, Youth Assistance and Protection[2] and the decree of 5 December 2018 relating to the general conditions of approval and granting of subsidies for open youth aid.[3] Some initiatives are private and therefore established as nonprofit organisations, others are public and thus administered by the Municipal College, a Public Centre for Social Welfare or another state body (like the Social Affairs Service of a region).

See also

References

External links