Professional, technical and organisational Innovations in social services

In the past 15 years several organisational, technical and professional innovations were realized in social services. These were stimulated in Hungary by the political and economic regime change of the early 1990s that represented a must to face critical social situations of large groups. The study analyzes the efforts of social services to support social integration under the circumstances of a deep employment crisis and the professional, institutional, organisational and political constraints of these efforts. It also deals with the parallel developments in labour market services and in social services that also aim at employment integration and the possibility of creating synergies between these two sectors. The professional and organisational impact of introducing IT in the administration of social services is also part of the paper.