During the last couple of years, the issue of public services, and especially of social services – group, family or individual social needs, life quality improvement, social protection and inclusion etc. – was in the centre of the public debate in Romania. A series of malfunctions on a macro social scale (see Human Development Indicators
http://www.undp.ro/profile_romania.php) turn it into a long and middle term development stake. From this perspective, a number of questions are to be asked: What responsibility should the government assume in upholding social services? Which should be the role of civil society? Which are the fundamental mechanisms of the community development? Are there any human resources (public servants in general) ready and willing to assume a central role for the development of public fields, mainly using the participative development tools and components? Do we, actually, have a culture of civility and active citizenship to improve local community development? Are there enough present resources in order to develop human resources (HR), including here the absorption of European non-reimbursable funds, like European Social Fund materialized, in Romania, in the Sector Operational Programme for the Development of the Human Resources (POSDRU) with its functioning period between 2007-2013? All these questions may be turned in just as many sociological research hypotheses about the Romanian communities that are to be found in a system crisis these days. This present research outlines some of the answers. Yet, an aspect should be specified: the field research started before the social crisis appeared on the summer of 2010. The regional research have been developed as part of the “European Qualifications and Standardization within the Social Work Field – Acronym Eur-As” Project (PERSEUS: POSDRU/18/1.2/G/11966), within North East, North West and South East Romanian Regions, during March till May 2010.
Keywords: Community Development, Conventional Community, Participative Community, Public Services, Social Services, European Funds
