Online Academic Workshops Active Ageing Policy and Pension Reforms: Russian and International Experience has Passed to Online Format and Discussed Social Service in Crisis

On April 23, 2020 the Institute for Social Policy at HSE University held its 11th academic workshop devoted to Reverse Mortages within Social Service System in Crisis. This workshop being part of the series of events on Active Ageing Policy and Pension Reforms: Russian and International Experience was organized with the support of the Russian National Association of social service providers (NASO).

The issues related to the right to life of people in loss of autonomy in terms of the СOVID-19 pandemic are reaching a new level. Weaknesses in interdisciplinary collaboration between social protection, health care and palliative care institutions have been identified. Involvement of volunteers in delivering food to lonely retirees, and substitution of sick social security workers are forming a new reality and necessitating a review of the model of functioning and funding permanent help and care systems. The State implements various social programs, but their volume and quality are conditioned by budget possibilities. Actual financial restrictions push to introduce various criteria of granting social support and mechanisms for targeting social assistance which limit their reception. At the same time, citizens' expectations are growing. A generation is retiring, which, on the one hand, expects a higher level of service and, on the other hand, has not managed to form an additional financial airbag.

The workshop inaugurated and moderated by Oksana Sinyavskaya, Deputy Director, Institute for Social Policy, HSE, heard to Ariy Okonishnikov, Project Manager, LLC Center of Economic Infrastructure, Svetlana Misikhina, Deputy Director, Center of Development Institute, HSE, Sergei Zaitsev, General Director, Russian National Association of social service providers (NASO), Aleksei Pudovkin ,Head of Investor Relations, DOM.RF, Maxim Kvasha, Vice President, KROS, Evgeny Yakushev, Head, Laboratory for pension system development, Institute for Social Policy, HSE, and Yury Voronin, Head, Center for Legal Support of Social and Economic Reforms, Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation, discussed the reverse mortgage mechanism as a tool to ensure the transformation of available assets into additional income, which can be directed to rehabilitation or care services, as well risks that a citizen, provider and the state may have in case of implementation of the reverse mortgage mechanism, and others.

 More information is available here.