The councillor Guillermo Sánchez, who is also the president of the Observatory of Childhood and Adolescence of Mallorca, has highlighted the elaboration of the first Residential Care Plan and the Consell’s commitment to continue with the roadmap set by the Plan of Attention to Childhood and Adolescence of Mallorca.
The first Residential Foster Care Plan and the new framework of collaboration between the Consell de Mallorca, UNICEF and town councils to promote the development of the different local plans for children and adolescents in line with the Plan for the Care of Children and Adolescents of Mallorca (PADIAM) are two of the main initiatives that the Institut Mallorquí d’Afers Socials (IMAS) presented today at the plenary session of the Observatory of Childhood and Adolescence of Mallorca (OIAM).
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The Conseller for Social Welfare of the Consell de Mallorca and president of IMAS, Guillermo Sánchez, has especially highlighted the development of the first Residential Care Plan which “marks the path we will follow for the next four years and which has been created from the consensus between IMAS professionals, the entities that make up the FEIAB and the nearly 500 children and adolescents who live in residential centres. We had a lack of a direct intervention plan, and thanks to the involvement and effort of all of them we now have the guidelines to guarantee a quality care network for children and adolescents in residential care”.
The Residential Foster Care Plan stresses that the particular needs of each child and adolescent imply a specialisation of the network of residential foster care services, without forgetting the objectives shared by all the services to guarantee their well-being, which revolve around five themes: foster care services as a safe environment, family intervention from residential foster care, emancipation and transition to adult life, the mental health of children and adolescents in foster care, and working with relationship, information and communication technologies.
During the plenary session, Sánchez also recalled that the Consell de Mallorca unanimously approved the continuity of the PADIAM until 2028. Precisely to make it easier for town councils to promote municipal policies in favour of children and adolescents in line with this Plan, IMAS today presented the OIAM with the new framework for collaboration and coordination with town councils, which improves technical support in municipalities that want to set up local councils for the participation of children and adolescents, create or monitor local plans for children and adolescents.
To put an end to the stigmatisation and criminalisation of foreign children and young people who arrive in the Balearic Islands without any adult reference, a manifesto proposed by the Permanent Commission of the OIAM was approved, calling for the commitment of public institutions, the media and Balearic society in general in favour of social integration and coexistence in diversity, avoiding hate speech.
During the plenary session, the start-up of the Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Adolescents Unit was also explained. In the words of the councillor, it is a service to “provide them with quality care and contribute to the relentless task of the entities that manage the residential reception of these children, providing them with a reference team made up of cultural integrators and social workers and educators who provide the coverage they need from IMAS”.
The Observatory of Childhood and Adolescence of Mallorca is a collegiate and advisory body created by IMAS as a space for the participation of all social agents in the field of childhood to learn about the reality of children and adolescents, and to propose social policies that contribute to the promotion and respect of their rights. It consists of a Permanent Commission, chaired by the island director of Centres and Programmes of Comprehensive Care for Children and Adolescents, Magdalena Ramis, which coordinates the meetings and tasks of the working groups and implements the decisions taken by the OIAM Plenary, a Plenary that brings together public institutions, professional bodies and social agents related to the subject, as well as political parties with non-parliamentary representation, and the working groups in charge of studying specific actions. You can find all the information about this body on the website https://www.observatoridelainfanciamallorca.net.