In 2000 I defended a doctoral thesis at the University of Paris 8 that questioned the concept ofchildhood at risk, a term as widely used as it is little analyzed in the field of child care. I had completed my student teaching internship at a juvenile justice center. I was fortunate enough to meet Oriol Badia, the director, and today the center bears his name in recognition of his career and commitment to social justice. This experience, along with volunteering at a center in the La Mina neighborhood run by Salesians with young neighborhood counselors, and directing a municipal summer camp in Raval, led me to want to research how to find solutions to juvenile delinquency. In 1989, the Generalitat (Catalan government) awarded me a scholarship to research this topic in Paris, just after the DGAIA (Generalitat of Catalonia) had been established. These were the years in which the debate was underway regarding the model of juvenile justice and child protection that Catalonia desired, and we looked toward Europe, especially France, with the Bonnemaison model of local, community, and preventive policy in the neighborhoods.
As I delved deeper into the research, the very idea of prevention began to lose its meaning. Because the preventive approach anticipates evil, and labels children and families who too often have seen their right to education and a dignified life violated. Too often, the label of "Social risk" applied to children responded more to the need to manage the lack of resources and the limitations of the educators themselves who had to take charge than to a careful analysis of the families' educational situation. More than a protective measure, they were forms of institutional control in the face of limitations on educating children or providing the necessary support to families.
The critical view of Donzelot (1977) in The female police -social work as a family police force- was also present here, at a conference entitled "Education or Control" held in Barcelona more than three decades ago. They were already a benchmark at that time:Esther Giménez-Salinas and the Jaume Funes, among others, who warned of the dangers of a model based more on control than support and education, a model based on the withdrawal of guardianship from parents and the institutionalization of children. With a focus on protection which often involves control that stigmatizes and penalizes the poorest and most vulnerable families. The recent case of a twelve-year-old girl who was abused while under the care of the administration forces us to look squarely at a system that, as the ombudsman says, "is not sufficiently protective."
Too often, family situations that could have been addressed with support and assistance end up turning into abandonment. The ombudsman, in her recent article in ARA, expressed it clearly: the system "executes" decisions without sufficient safeguards, often without sufficiently solid prior intervention or a truly protective approach. She added: "An emergency situation may be understandable and acceptable for a limited time, but [...] children see the years go by and grow up in centers without a clear or stable solution."
The 2023 Ombudsman's Report notes that only 2.1% of the Department of Social Rights' budget for children is allocated to supporting families, while 85% is dedicated to the protection system. Furthermore, Catalonia invests only 1% of GDP in social protection for children, far from the European average of 2.5%. Basic social services, which should provide preventive and support work, are overwhelmed and, due to a lack of alternatives, opt to refer cases to protection. There is neither the time nor the tools to carry out in-depth work. The risk is shifting to the withdrawal of guardianship from parents, with no room for education.
This particularly affects single-parent families, often headed by women living in poverty. The poverty risk in these households reaches almost 40%. The system is not blind, but it refuses to see that the problem is not the mothers, but the conditions in which they must raise their children. And that withdrawing child care—which would be avoidable with greater support and more resources—perpetuates inequality and makes the pain chronic.
The current crisis of the DGAIA will not be resolved only with a name changeWe must listen to the educators who work there, often in precarious conditions, and review whether there has been malpractice, yes, but without forgetting to recognize the immense work carried out by many third-sector entities. There is a danger of dismantling a collaboration between the public and third sectors that, properly understood, is an expression of a civil society committed to children's rights. Many of these entities have a long history and have responsibly assumed situations such as the hosting of thousands of unaccompanied minors. What is needed is to guarantee that a state-funded place has the same cost and the same conditions as a public one, and to review the model to ensure equity. It is time to make visible the educators who sustain the system from the trenches. We must review, yes, but we must also recognize and preserve what works and responds with dignity. And, above all, recover meaning: educate before controlling, help before labeling, and accompany before separating.
