Laura Morro: "Social services aren't ready for the Catalonia of eight million."

BarcelonaLaura Morro took the relief in Conxita Peña As dean of the Catalan College of Social Work, a position she combines with her work as head of social work at the Consorci Mar Parc de Salut. She states that she has proposed that society and politicians recognize the value of these professionals.

Although they have been called social workers for years, they still carry the term "assistant." Could you clarify what that is and what they do?

— She is a professional who will accompany and assist you in times of crisis, whether financial or family-related, within and outside the administrative system, since we are very knowledgeable about all welfare systems—social rights, justice, health, etc.—Our goal is to improve your situation.

But you will agree with me that citizens often see them as a barrier to a service.

— We are part of the system, and sometimes it's the system that excludes us. Our mission is to support people so they don't feel excluded. It's true that part of our work involves providing resources, but not everything. It's also about achieving change so that the person isn't excluded.

Do we have social services for Catalonia, where 8 million people live?

— No. We are often an invisible sector, so we can accompany invisible people. Staffing ratios and the work we can do are not well measured. Therefore, the services are not designed for the Catalonia of 8 million inhabitants Not even for the complexity we have, because when we were 6 million, they were already in deficit. These are services that have always been at the back of the queue. We don't have a law that tells us what ratio of professionals is needed for each service.

Are social workers a good indicator of social fragility?

— What we see is that there is more and more more people with many needs that are excluded and it is very difficult for them to re-enter the circuit. We increasingly have more vulnerable population and fragile, and I'm not just talking about the economy, but also about unwanted loneliness, or the delay in dependency. It can't take two years to make an assessment. Now that they're going around in circles and saying they're going to invest more, I think politicians are starting from the wrong framework. We can't talk about a dependency law, but of a social rights lawA social services law that covers all of society, without waiting. We believe the College is a good platform to fight for the rights of individuals and professionals.

Regarding your profession, why do you think it lacks recognition?

— It's a feminized profession that works very close to exclusion, which often also means it's an excluded profession. And then, we haven't taken the step into politics to define strategies. Sometimes I compare ourselves to caregivers, to mothers, to grandmothers, who are the invisible members of the family, but if they're not there, nothing works. This is what happens to us: we don't crave prominence.

A social worker from Barcelona City Council made headlines when it was discovered that kept benefit money.

— This has been a very difficult time because our mission is to guarantee citizens' rights. We have asked the Prosecutor's Office to appear as a private prosecutor and have made ourselves available to the municipalities involved—Barcelona and Montmeló, which also removed the official for similar events—but for now, they are unwilling to cooperate with the Association. We face a dilemma with public institutions. On the one hand, they call us to assist them, to develop strategic plans and opinions. On the other hand, they don't recognize us as a professional association. Most public institutions don't require membership, although it is mandatory for employment. Our intervention is more one of professional ethics, and the worst thing you can do is betray a user's trust.

She is concerned that according to a survey by the College, half of the workers want to leave their jobs and report poor working conditions or violence?

— All welfare state services are in crisis. We have colleagues who have very precarious working conditions and who assume heavy responsibilities for caring for people. In the end, we often stand up for administrations and policies that don't support people, and we must find ways to help them. We professionals are exhausted and have no help from the institution to endure this situation. At the College, we have created emotional and social support groups to support our workers because we always work in crises and need spaces for reflection in order to clean up, as all emergency teams do after an attack or an earthquake. We do this every day, and we don't have these spaces.

Speaking of crisis, you were part of the team that treated the victims of the attacks on La Rambla on August 17, 2017. What was the role of the social workers?

— Since there was no social work support at the Hospital [del Mar in Barcelona] in the afternoon, I went ahead and offered my help. What I did was manage all the psychosocial care for the injured people and their families. We organized ourselves by making lists of those being treated, and while the managers debated how to treat the patients, the social workers, who are very practical, called the colleague at the other hospital: "I have a mother, I have a child, do you have that person?" And we organized ourselves to group the families by hospital and move the less seriously ill members.

The importance of thinking about care.

— Even at the Sea, we built rooms that were family units, and the professionals were the ones who moved around and went to care for this population. Since it was August, we were very much on our own in terms of management, and perhaps that's why it was easier to reach agreements to work together.

Was this work made invisible?

— Internally, no, because until then, social workers weren't included in the care protocols. No one thought we could be essential personnel. Following our intervention in the attack, the Generalitat (Catalan government) called us and said, "Listen, what did he do? Because they told us it went very well." And since 2017, all the protocols now include the social worker as a management component of all the social agents involved. In terms of hospital structure and recognition, things remained the same, but we did begin to sow seeds.