Social Rights puts the accelerator on and commits to presenting the 'new' DGAIA next week.

BarcelonaThe Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Mònica Martínez Bravo, is in a hurry to close the Scandals affecting the General Directorate of Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA), which have once again put the child protection system in the spotlight. In less than 24 hours, the regional minister brought forward the timeline for the presentation of the "refoundation" of the DGAIA: while at Monday's meeting with the third sector and professional associations, the department gave a deadline of between two and three months to have a proposal ready, this Tuesday morning the regional spokesperson, Silvia Paneque, shortened the period to between three. Finally, Martínez Bravo concluded that the plan will be made public "next week."

In a response to the plenary session of Parliament, the Minister of Human Rights pointed out that the project to "refound" the DGAIA will entail a "comprehensive transformation plan" for the way the entity operates, which It cares for around 20,000 minors, of which around 9,000 live in centers.The objective is for the entity to operate with "excellence" and, therefore, it has announced that, for example, the teams will be resized so that the ratios of social workers and children facilitate control so that minors are not left behind. exposed to violence and sexual exploitation of adults.

The DGAIA (General Directorate of Public Administrations) has been one of the priorities of the new team at the regional ministry, in charge since August of last year. During this time, "all the recommendations" from the Audit Office and the Greuges Office were discussed internally, which analyzed whether there were alleged financial irregularities and structural errors in the withdrawal of guardianship of minors.

Proposals prepared

In fact, several participants in the meeting between the regional ministry and the sector explain that Martínez Bravo's team indicated that they have almost all the details on how to approach the renewal of the DGAIA, although the attending entities and professional associations offered to help improve them. According to witnesses, the department's leadership was very vehement, admitting that these are very difficult times in which everyone—and not just the department—could come out badly in the reports or information that will be published soon.

However, the same sources also explain that a constructive tone was adopted throughout the meeting, as the diagnosis of reforming the management of the DGAIA is shared. The question is whether there will be an additional budget to carry out all the measures that will be proposed next week, but sources present at the meeting indicate that the regional ministry indicated that they should work with existing allocations.

In this regard, it is noted that the regional ministry is very interested in strengthening prevention measures to prevent the number of minors in centers from increasing and to strengthen work with families through basic and specialized social services that depend on city councils and regional councils. It is in this network that negligent behaviors and habits are detected. If professionals conduct a thorough emotional follow-up with the parents and minors, the situation can be redirected so that the child can continue living at home. The regional ministry's main objective is to ensure that there are no children under six years of age in DGAIA residential centers, and even more so, that the more than 250 children aged 0-3 can live with foster families.