The welfare partnership is defined as the process through which local agents interact with each other in the dynamics of collectively defining strategic objectives and building place-based approaches that reinforce local citizenship. What can we learn from the experience of municipal social action partnerships that is likely to assist us in building sustainable development formulas? This article analyses the partnership practices in six Portuguese municipalities in the Northern Region, discussing forms of social support that are convergent with sustainable development and how they tend to be articulated in municipal social action partnerships. The present research followed phenomenological reasoning using qualitative methods and multiple case studies. There were debates with professionals, looking for explicit meanings in the abstract knowledge of the concept trajectory. The results suggest that convergence with sustainable development resides in the combination of three elements: (1) developing innovative eco-community social responses that are aligned with a comprehensive social sustainability ideal that is contextualized in the relationship between subjectivities and territory, as well as with the general principles of the providence system; (2) implementing a local strategic planning practice, monitored and aligned with local projects that act on the ecological effect, determining local vulnerabilities; and (3) adopting an efficient practice of governance and allocation of stakeholders and resources, emphasizing the multilevel articulation and durability of the implemented local processes.

De um modo geral, os territórios rurais em Portugal, sobretudo os do interior, têm vindo a perder população, o que origina uma crescente desvitalização da economia e o declínio social, num processo em espiral com consequências negativas para a coesão do território e o desenvolvimento global do país. O projeto ASAS, de âmbito nacional, focou-se na intervenção em aldeias rurais isoladas, com base numa estratégia integrada de diversificação da economia e de criação de emprego local, através da valorização dos recursos endógenos do território, da participação comunitária e da cooperação interterritorial. A Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro dinamizou este projeto na região Norte de Portugal. Numa primeira fase, foram identificadas e caraterizadas oito aldeias, cujos processos de desenvolvimento registam práticas comunitárias ativas e diferenciadas, potencialmente sustentáveis e transferíveis para outros contextos. Posteriormente, foram selecionadas as aldeias de Provesende (Sabrosa) e Santa Leocádia de Geraz do Lima (Viana do Castelo), para uma análise SWOT, mais aprofundada com as comunidades, que mobilizou a participação ativa dos residentes e agentes institucionais. Dos resultados, destaca-se, como denominador comum, a importância de conhecer experiências exteriores e de envolver a população local para atingir níveis de cumplicidade, adesão e comprometimento. São precisos mais contactos com a população, é preciso animar o território, mas faltam agentes ativos e dinamizadores, que promovam mais consensos, que ajudem a ultrapassar obstáculos, a alargar os horizontes e que liderem os processos em determinados momentos. É fundamental a avaliação das práticas e a promoção da reflexividade, envolvendo as comunidades.

The decentralization of social functions to municipalities, also known as municipal decentralization, triggered new contexts of practice in municipal social intervention. Municipalities are now dealing with more work and a focus on working in partnerships, which calls for greater dynamism of the local social action teams. This process has pushed the social workers to practices that alternate between mediation through the construction of access to a universal standard of social rights and the development of social intervention models with specific access to certain contexts and social groups. The objective of this paper is to envision new forms of standardization of social action within the framework of municipal decentralization, combining place-based perspectives with community and structural social work. What can we learn from social workers’ perspectives on the context of social functions in order to envision forms of place-based standardization of municipal social action? We seek to analyze the professional visions of local social action systems reform, discussing new contexts of practice; new place-based functions; and their correlation with political mediation for universal and intermunicipal social rights, instrumental dimensions of concrete work, and dimensions of value attributed to practicing social work. We organized the research according to the phenomenological paradigm, mobilizing the qualitative method and the multiple-case study. Based on evidence from the discourse of all professionals involved in the study, the findings indicate that the transformations of local social action systems, associated with the processes of social functions decentralization, imply greater comprehensiveness of social intervention, the ability to work in partnerships, and new place-based approach matrices, but they also present challenges for social workers in terms of multilevel governance that may favor the standardization of access to better social well-being between municipal territories.

Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate the determinants of well-being and their interactions with governance, with the aim of systematizing comprehensive well-being indicators, considering both objective and subjective factors, and analyzing how social policy decisions influence these perceptions. Theoretical Framework: Fundamental concepts and theories are presented, highlighting the importance of subjectivity in the concept of well-being. The research also addresses values, civic participation, trust, and governmental policies as variables that interact with citizens' well-being. Method: The adopted methodology comprised a systematic and narrative review of the literature, seeking the intersection between well-being and governance parameters, following the PRISMA protocol. Utilizing sources such as SCOPUS, Web of Science, and reference literature, we aimed for a consistent understanding of the phenomenon. Results and Discussion: The results revealed that perceptions and experiences of well-being are influenced by living conditions, access to services, and community involvement. The discussion emphasizes the need for a holistic and dynamic approach to understand the relationships between well-being indicators and governance. Research Implications: The practical and theoretical implications of this research include the potential improvement in public policy formulation through the integration of well-being indicators. These insights can impact areas such as social policies, economic development, and civic engagement. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature by offering a comprehensive analysis of well-being indicators and their interactions with governance, highlighting the importance of a multidisciplinary and dynamic approach. The relevance lies in the potential application of the results to inform public policies and improve citizens' well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire world population at multiple levels. Within the most vulnerable population, the elderly have seen their usual fragilities worsened in an epidemiological context. Thus, it was necessary to reinforce the gerontological response to aging at home, or in place, framed in situations of comorbidities, health problems, economic need and isolation, among other situations of premeditated situations of aging fragility. Objective: Seeking to explain a model of gerontological response to aging-in-place in future pandemic situations. For that purpose, we have explored, through a scientific literature review, the relationship between public participation and the gerontological response to aging-in-place during COVID-19, considering the four main European welfare models. During this analysis we also intended to identify the reconfigurations from those responses, considering their place-based/neutral order. Methodology: To proceed in this analysis, we used a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to identify a series of articles that add value to this problem. Next, in order to identify current research trends, we undertook a Bibliometric Analysis (BA), using the metadata from the same set of articles collected from Scopus and Web of Science. Results: The literature on the subject is interdisciplinary, dispersed throughout areas such as health; social sciences; politics; and computational, molecular, and even environmental fields of study. Through the use of keywords, the literature found on the relationship between the type of gerontological responses to aging-in-place and providence systems is still insufficient. There are, however, other research possibilities, such as exploring indicators of gerontological responses, of public expenditure or of the type of support from interlocutor stakeholders through a comparative study between countries, which allowed us to robustly answer the central question: Is there any relationship between the different public welfare systems and the public participation model, which included community participation, in the gerontological response to aging-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic?

(1) Background: ICIP territorialization has been a trend in European countries. Evidence shows that local monitoring is effective in the process of social inclusion; however, territorial differences may cause different results in social and professional trajectories. This systematic and narrative review aims to understand the territorialized elements in income conditional policies to insertion and envisage challenges of national organizations for efficient socio-employment insertion. (2) Methods: Data collection was carried out using Scopus. In addition, a manual search of gray literature by reference authors was used. As a methodology, bibliometric analysis was performed using Vosviewer. (3) Results: The results indicate an increase in the number of publications and citations, especially since 2004. The journals whose articles have the highest citation and co-citation rates belong to the social sciences field. It was possible to detect a strong interconnection between authors, sources, and keywords co-occurrence. The four clusters reveal that the research trends meet the need to restructure the Welfare State, around the new social risks, with the territorialization of the ICIP being a proximity response strategy. Social and professional insertion vary according to territorial cohesion, strong conditionalities with real insertion opportunities and degree of decentralization (4) Conclusions: The degree and effectiveness of ICIP decentralization and socio-employment insertion vary according to the trajectories of European welfare state models and the degree of coverage and generosity of the social protection system. Territorialization tends to reduce the costs of social protection, but these measures remain hostage to different territorial opportunities and real conditions of insertion.