"They are changing a child's life": families acting as a network for those without a network

BarcelonaWhen she learned she was on the waiting list for a kidney transplant, Clarisney Camacaro's joy at the news was mixed with worry about what she would do with her daughter Valeria while she had to be hospitalized. As a single mother with no nearby relatives to help her, her options were limited. Until someone at work told her about the Barcelona City Council's Collaborating Families Service, a municipal program with over four decades of history in which volunteer families offer to lend a hand with the logistics of people in the same situation as Clarisney and Valeria. The network for those who have no network.

For almost a year now, Clarisney and Valeria have been meeting periodically with Dolors Farrés and Carles Pahisa. This retired teacher couple has been collaborating with the service for years. "We've gotten to know each other and have gained trust, so that when the operation arrives, Valeria can come live with us for as many days as needed," they both explain. Valeria admits that when her mother explained the situation to her, she was embarrassed at first, but that "everything has gone very well since then." "When she comes to visit us, she stretches out on the sofa and everything, she feels at home," Dolors jokes.

The Commissioner for Social Rights of the Barcelona City Council, Sònia Fuertes, thanks the role played by collaborating families like Dolors and Carles. "They are changing a child's life," she emphasizes. The City Council would like to expand the pool of collaborating families to reach even further. According to council data, in 2025 there were 44 collaborating families attached to the service, who cared for 38 children, some of them on specific days or weeks and others on a regular basis.

This is, in fact, the great peculiarity of this service. Unlike what happens, for example, with foster families, collaborating families do not replace the original family, but complement it. The details of the collaborations – schedules, frequency, etc. – are agreed between the two families. "It's a temporary support, they play the role that aunts or grandparents could play," explains Fuertes, who admits that the service "is sometimes not well-known enough and is confused with foster families".

Families using the service almost always arrive through a social, educational, or health referent, mainly from social services. It is then that the professionals of the Collaborative Families Service evaluate the situation and search the pool of collaborative families for one that fits the needs of the applicants. Fuertes underlines this "professional filtering" as another of the program's strengths.

Mothers who work on Saturdays

In Valeria's case, Dolors and Carles will welcome her into their home for the duration of Clarisney's hospital stay. But there are many other cases in the service. The majority, they explain from the City Council, are single-mother families. In many cases, for example, they are mothers who work on Saturdays or night shifts and who, thanks to the Collaborative Families Service, have someone who can look after their children, integrating them into the daily life of another family. Often, they are families that also have children.

In the case of Dolors and Carles, their children are now grown up, but for a time they lived with other children whom they looked after occasionally or who spent part of Easter or summer holidays with them. "It's a way for your children to see that collaboration is necessary and to get to know other realities," they point out, and they consider that the reward is very great in exchange for a "very small effort." "I'm just doing what I'd like them to do with my son if he needed it," they conclude.