The next course, all educational centers, whether public, private or subsidized, must have a welfare and protection coordinator, who will be the reference figure in the centers to which children can go in case they are victims of violence, from the bullying to abuse or mistreatment. They will be responsible for acting on suspicious cases and ensuring that the protocols against any form of violence against children are complied with. By then this figure must also be operational, under the name of protection delegate, in entities that carry out sports and leisure activities.
This was agreed on Monday by the sector conference on childhood, which brings together the autonomous communities and the Ministry of Social Rights, and which has agreed on a roadmap to deploy the measures contained in the law for the protection of children against violence , which was approved last May and is a pioneer in terms of the recognition of the rights of children and adolescents, but will require a large regulatory deployment by the autonomies and the ministry until it can be fully applied.
The agreement has been approved by 10 autonomies, six have abstained (with the intention of previously consulting with the education ministries) and only the Basque Country has voted against. During the parliamentary processing of the law, the PNV had already shown its rejection for jurisdictional reasons. The pact is not binding, but it is the first agreement of the Government with the autonomies to advance in coordination tasks during the implementation of the law.
The student welfare and protection coordinator will be the reference figure in educational centers for all matters related to violence or its prevention. It will be supervised by the director and its work will be, basically, that the protocols of violence prevention and good treatment are complied with. He will be the one to act in suspicious cases. Among their tasks, as specified in the law, will be to promote training plans on prevention, early detection and protection of minors, both for the staff and for the students themselves, to identify themselves to the educational community as the main reference. for communications related to violence in the center or its surroundings, and to coordinate cases that require intervention by the social services, as well as the security forces.
“It is an urgent task that we include in the law and that we must implement as soon as possible,” Minister Ione Belarra said during the meeting, referring to this figure. “They must be the key element in ensuring that plans and protocols are implemented in education and in leisure and sports, listening to minors and their warnings about any type of violence, and communicating risk situations” , he added, something that “can not wait any longer.” In the 2022-2023 academic year they must be fully operational. And in the second quarter of next year, the sectoral conference will analyze the degree of articulation and development of these figures.
14 new tasks
But the agreement adopted this Monday goes beyond the protection coordinator, and sets the sector conference on childhood and adolescence 14 tasks to fulfill at certain times in 2022 and the first months of 2023. The objective is to set a minimum common denominator for all the autonomies, harmonize the deployment of the law.
For example, in the first four months of 2022, recommendations must be approved to offer comprehensive, rapid and coordinated care to minors who are victims of violent crimes and promote their recovery in specialized services, and an agreement must be reached on the criteria that they must meet. The mechanisms for reporting violence suffered by children, so that they are clear, safe and accessible, such as free telephone helplines, electronic media or digital platforms, and that these are known by families and professionals.
It has also been agreed that in the first four months of the year a document with common recommendations and criteria must be agreed upon, which must contain the protocols contemplated by law, which are many and all of them must be subject to evaluation. These include the protocols for action in schools and sports and leisure centers, compliance with which the protection coordinator must ensure; those that affect the actions of the security forces for the good treatment of child victims of violence and avoid secondary victimization (that minors relive their traumas during the complaint and judicial process), and the protocols in centers for the protection of minors , specifically those of prevention, detection and intervention in the event of possible cases of abuse, sexual exploitation and trafficking.
In the second four-month period of next year, the conference must also agree on guidelines to include training on children’s rights in the curriculum of professionals from different fields that require regular contact with children and the autonomies must present the general lines of their plans. of prevention to eradicate violence against children, which should contain prevention measures in areas ranging from the family to the social services, passing through the security forces.
It will be between January and April when the sectoral conference sends the Government the national strategy for the eradication of violence against children, which the sector organizations have described as one of the key elements to achieve a good implementation of the law, since it will have a multiannual character and will establish the tasks to be carried out by each Administration. It will also contain an economic report. At the moment, it has only transpired that the Government contemplates an item of 25 million euros in the budgets for 2022, which are currently being processed in Congress, to promote the development of the law. In the economic memory of the norm, “more than 70 million” were contemplated, as Belarra herself had announced.
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