On June 27, representatives from 10 different ministries got together at a seminar called “Barrier-Free Public Services: Methodologies, Approaches and Tools” to share some new ideas on how to make public services more accessible.

The event’s participants believe that public services should be more accessible and convenient for people with disabilities, the elderly, parents with young children, veterans, and other groups that face barriers in their interaction with the state.

The seminar showed us some tools for monitoring and evaluating public services that government agencies are already using in areas like healthcare and rehabilitation, police services and law enforcement, social support, hospitality, and media.

Based on what we learned from the experience, the participants got to try out the experts’ advice and come up with their ideas for how to handle the situations we discussed.

The event was put together with the help of the Council of Europe project “Strengthening Social Protection in Ukraine” and the team behind the project “Support to Ukraine’s Government Reforms” (SURGe) provided some expert advice.