all forms of discrimination in social services, health, housing, public and private employment, and education; adapting services to pluricultural realities; receiving, settling and integrating migrants; or consulting and representing people from different communities). This section illustrates how, on the basis of these overall goals and in which frameworks, local authorities proceed step by step to implement their diversity policies through a range of methods. This tool is also useful in that it highlights the variety of localauthority approaches, presenting the factors behind their policies (domestic legal framework, local authority’s willingness to take action, etc.). Accordingly, this document supplements the guide: it offers local-authority staff very specific examples of initiatives aimed at developing intercultural skills in social services. It therefore also has its limitations insofar as these initiatives, if they are to be genuinely effective, require a suitable institutional framework and appropriate conditions; it is the objective of this guide to help bring these about.
What are the challenges addressed by the guide? 33
General challenges:
Political and social • Meeting the need for institutional reference points for managing diversity; • Gauging the nature and extent of the need to accommodate diversity in public services; • Determining players’ room for manoeuvre in deciding whether or not to introduce adaptation in accordance with the law and the country’s constitutional values. Legal • Promoting accessibility of services and equal access to services; • Implementing the right to equality through appropriate measures; • Preventing exclusion and the discriminatory impact of institutional norms and practices. Operational • Helping professionals change their intervention practices; • Improving decision-making in intercultural contexts; • Providing tools for assessing and negotiating requests for adaptation within the staff member’s remit. 33
Specific goals for the main players:
Politicians Politicians are responsible for laying down the guidelines needed by public services to take diversity into account.
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