Together with a number of pilot cities and municipalities, VVSG wants to have IT tools developed and procedures set up for the capture of 'local signals' by field workers with the aim of using this input to set up and elaborate an improved local social policy. In this way, the policy should be more closely linked to the needs of vulnerable citizens.

Daily, field workers such as home nurses, social workers, volunteers at food distribution come in contact with vulnerable citizens and are therefore well placed to detect structural social and societal problems. These eyes and ears in the field are currently far too indirectly and insufficiently systematically used as input for (local) social policy. Therefore, we are developing a tool to 'harvest' the experiences of field workers, aggregate and prioritize their signals so that they can form relevant input.

Together with 14 local authorities (the pilot municipalities of Ghent, Bornem, Dendermonde, Nazareth, Heusden-Zolder, Berlaar, Sint-Niklaas, Eeklo, Oud-Turnhout, Kortrijk, Roeselare, Landen, Mortsel and Kortemark) and relevant stakeholders (District Health Centres, Vivel, ELZ Ghent), the VVSG wants to develop a system to capture recurring problems and convert them into relevant actions. ‘Local Signals' is a process to arrive at a stronger local social policy, in which a digital tool plays the main role in capturing and processing and which can be used by all local administrations.