The Department of Social Welfare has presented this Thursday, February 29, a campaign that aims to raise awareness and encourage all citizens of Menorca to join the process of fostering families, which is necessary to help children and adolescents in unprotected situations.

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Department of Social Welfare

The aim is to expand the pool of homes for those children who, for various reasons and temporarily, can not live with their families

With the slogan “La teva recompensa, el seu futur”, the campaign aims to find a home for those children who, for various reasons temporarily can not live with their family and reside in the protection centre of the Consell Insular de Menorca.

The councillor of Social Welfare of Menorca, Carmen Reynés, and the insular director of Social Attention, Daniel García de Mar, have presented the campaign together with Jesús Rabassa, head of the Childhood and Family Service.

There are currently 23 minors residing in the center, and 32 in foster care. However, of these 32, only 8 are with external families, as the rest currently reside with relatives. “From the Consell Insular, we have the competence and responsibility to accompany children and adolescents at risk of lack of protection, offering help and a home to those who can not continue living at home because of the existing difficulties. We want families that offer an effective family environment and that they can continue growing healthily, that can solve if necessary the pain and traumas experienced”, explained the councillor of Social Welfare of Menorca.

The Casa de la Infancia is a centre that provides children with the comprehensive care they need, from the most basic to the emotional support necessary to grow while working with the families of origin to ensure future integration into the family environment, provided the right conditions are met.

“We believe that placement in a centre should be the last option. We are working to promote all programs that avoid or minimize situations of lack of protection, and to avoid separating children from their families. For this reason, we are increasing the home care team with 1 social worker, 3 social educators and a psychologist to try to make admission to the centre the last option”, said Reynés.

The campaign will be carried out through a web page (www.acollimentmenorca.es), videos, posters, and additional material such as bags, pens and notebooks. In addition, this campaign will be completed with a conference where testimonies of people who have taken in and children who have been able to live a second childhood in other homes will be shared and shared, something that will help to understand the real meaning from a personal point of view.

Any family, whether a single person, with a partner, with children or without, can apply for temporary foster care. The duration and placement of each child depend on the needs and circumstances of each child.

If anyone is interested, you can request an appointment to the Family Insular Service (SIF) of the Consell Insular de Menorca through:

• Phone: 971 36 12 12
• Email: acolliments@cime.es
• A WhatsApp: 679 722 689
• More information on the website acollimentmenorca.es

It is worth remembering that there are different types of fostering, such as emergency fostering (it is immediate and lasts about six months), temporary fostering (maximum duration of two years), permanent fostering (more than two years), specialized fostering (children with special needs, adolescents, or siblings), and collaborating families, who foster at certain non-school times, such as weekends, vacations, etc.

The families receive prior training and throughout the foster care, both the family and the children or adolescents will be supported by a multidisciplinary team that will accompany them throughout the process. All the families will receive an economic benefit to combat the costs, in addition to occasional extraordinary aid.

The island director of Social Care has recounted the challenges faced by the department, which requires a new approach that is already beginning to be implemented. “There is a new form of communication with new technologies. It has changed the way of communicating between minors, but also between adults and minors,” García de Mar has indicated. “For example, 7 or 8 years old is the starting age of pornography consumption in the Balearic Islands. They can normalize a series of behaviours that can be harmful to their development. They result in mental health problems, and if not detected in time and combined with access to psychotropic substances, can alter the development of minors. For these reasons, a new family care team has been programmed, and its objective is to avoid uprooting minors and to be able to support families”, added the insular director of Social Care.

On the other hand, work is being done for the separation by profiles within the child protection centre to give each child more personalized attention. “A child under 4 years old and a child under 16 have different needs,” said Rabassa.

“We will carry out works in the centre for the protection of minors to make it as close to a home as possible,” explained the Councilor for Social Welfare. “We will also promote new training workshops for the juvenile inmates according to their interests. And we have requested a greater police presence around the centre. We want to prevent unsuitable people from approaching them and potentially harming their development,” said Garcia de Mar.

In parallel, work is being done to have two differentiated centres to separate the minors according to their needs and ages. “We have an apartment and the Casa de la Infancia. We are waiting to sign an agreement with the City Council of Maó to be able to have a more appropriate house and differentiate the profiles”, concluded the councillor of Social Welfare.