The INSESS-COVID19 study, which the UPC and iSocial are carrying out to find out the impact of Covid19 on local Social Services in Catalonia, has taken a new step with carrying out a pilot test with the Social Services area of the City Council of Platja d’Aro. The pilot test consisted of conducting a workshop with about fifteen people from the municipality, in the course of which they answered the INSESS-COVID19 Questionnaire from their mobile phones, while the organizers conducted it by videoconference.

The INSESS-COVID19 Questionnaire has been specially designed within the framework of the project to be able to measure the social problems that COVID19 has brought to light in Catalonia.

This first pilot workshop in Platja d’Aro has made it possible to verify that in just 20 minutes it is possible to answer the entire questionnaire; that answering from mobile phones is possible and simple; and that the convened citizens can easily participate both from home and gathered in a municipal space.

The results of this pilot workshop, together with another that is planned to be held in the coming days with the County Council of La Noguera, will validate the innovative methodology designed in the project to obtain quick information on what is happening, before extending the process of carrying out these citizenship workshops to all the 105 Basic Areas of Social Services of Catalonia and consolidating the different types of workshop ranging from entirely face-to-face to non-face-to-face and relocated taking advantage of new technologies .

The methodology of the project proposes very agile consultation mechanisms for the population, which require a minimum effort of the Social Services teams of the municipalities and counties and provides workshop modalities that are well adapted to the different scenarios of greater or lesser mobility restrictions. due to the pandemic and also harnesses the full power of Artificial Intelligence and data science to get conclusive results very quickly.

The project, started in May 2020 in the framework of the extraordinary call of the CCD-UPC on the occasion of the emergency caused by the COVID19, has the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan Association of Municipalities, the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia, the Diputació de Barcelona and the Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona. The first results of the study are expected to be made public in early September.

Today, July 7, the board of the iSocial Foundation has expanded with a seventh member social entity: the Catalan Down Syndrome Foundation. For the first time, its president, Katy Trias, has participated in the monthly meeting of the board of iSocial, on behalf of this foundation that last month approved the incorporation in iSocial.

The Catalan Down Syndrome Foundation (FCSD) is an organization born in 1984 on the initiative of Montserrat Trueta and other parents and professionals, with the aim of delving into Down Syndrome (DS) through research and practical experience in the fields of pedagogy, psychology, medicine, and the social area. Since its inception, it has had, when deemed necessary, the valuable input and direct participation of the most prestigious international scientists related to issues affecting Down syndrome.

The FCSD technical team is made up of professionals in psychology, pedagogy and medicine and has a group of scientific advisors. The pioneering nature of the Foundation is a point of reference consulted by public and private entities inside and outside Spain. The spirit that FCSD wants to convey is that people with Down syndrome have inherent abilities and a right to receive the resources appropriate to their individual needs, in order to optimize their development.

With this incorporation, there are now seven social entities that make up the iSocial board: Ampans, Associació Benestar Desenvolupament-ABD, Support-Fundació Tutelar Girona, Fundació Família i Benestar Social, Grup ATRA, Fundació Joia, and now also the FCSD.

The iSocial Foundation, the Platform of the Elderly of Catalonia (FATEC) and the Catalan Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology (SCGG) have today published the manifesto “For an open (and urgent) debate on the new model of care for long-term and residential in Catalonia ”, in which we ask that the window of opportunity opened by the Covid-19 crisis be used to generate a broad and open dialogue aimed at agreeing on decisions that allow to redesign a model that needs deep transformations.

The aim of the manifesto is to rethink the model of all long-term care, covering all the services and supports that older people need at this stage of their lives, both in the residential area, and at home or elsewhere, and with the support and involvement of the community.

To help the debate, the manifesto proposes 10 basic principles that should guide the construction of the new model and should address the underlying problem: designing a long-term care model that takes into account diversity in old age, which bet on a fairer distribution of care, which recognizes its social value and does not promote its precariousness, which responds to the complexity of care arising from population aging and which puts at the center the rights of the elderly to continue to decide on their life.

You can view and download the manifesto here.

Since June, the iSocial Foundation is participating in the EMJUCOVID study, led by the Universitat de Lleida (UdL), which will analyze the consequences of the economic crisis resulting from Covid-19 on the employment of the youth population and on the social inequalities of the group. Researchers from the Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universitat de València and Fundació Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia also participate in the study. The duration of the project is 12 months, and it is financed by the Supera Covid Fund of CRUE-Spanish Universities, CSIC and Banco Santander.

The project is led by economist Maria Àngels Cabasés, professor and director of the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Lleida (UdL), member of the Social Council of the iSocial Foundation, and member of the JOVIS.com research group that for years investigates the behavior of the youth labor market.

The objective of the research is to analyze how the health crisis has affected the youngest labor market, “especially in the sectors that have reached higher precarious quotas and affecting gender inequality,” explains Cabasés. “We also want to find out what strategies they have adopted in this unexpected situation and whether the fact of having university studies helps or not to obtain better contracts,” adds the UdL professor.

To do this, the research team will use quantitative and qualitative techniques, that is, it will analyze data on working life and other official statistics, but it will also carry out personalized interviews and discussion groups “to access the experiences of young people, especially girls, and the different situations that are living from the outbreak of the health emergency, “highlights the coordinator of the study, which will be carried out in Catalonia and the Valencian Community. “They are two important population centers where the impact of the crisis has had different implications,” she says.

The research aims to “influence the debate on the post-pandemic labor market, in the short term, in relation to the situation of youth job insecurity in a context of increasing digitization of the economy,” highlights Maria Àngels Cabasés. “We hope to obtain an x-ray of how social inequalities are perpetuated and the different labor and social roles that young men and women occupy in a moment of crisis such as the current one”; as well as formulating “a set of recommendations to promote the employability of young people and contribute to their economic emancipation in the best possible conditions,” emphasizes the professor.

In this sense, the project contemplates writing “a catalog of recommendations for the development of public policies to promote quality employment aimed at young people, taking into account the observed situations of inequality.” Also a compilation of cases of good practices “that the youth community is implementing to promote new forms of organization and activity” and “recommendations addressed to the university and the set of economic and social agents to reduce the negative impacts on youth employment and under an intersectional approach.“

This week the iSocial Foundation and the Intelligence Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Researh Center of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) have started the prospective study INESS-COVID19 (Identification of Emerging Social Needs as consequence of the COVID19 and effect on the Social Services of the territory), to know the vulnerabilities of the Catalan population in the next months and to contribute elements of decision that allow the 104 Basic Areas of Social Services of Catalonia to face it.

Indeed, the consequences of the crisis caused by COVID19 have been devastating from a health point of view, but all indications are that they will also be devastating from an economic and social welfare point of view. COVID19 has generated a situation never seen before and it is more than likely that new social needs will emerge, which are urgently needed to be adequately addressed. INSESS-COVID19 will use an innovative approach based on mechanisms for the rapid collection of data from participatory processes that will involve experts in Social Services and also citizens; a mixed methodology that combines data science techniques, knowledge management and artificial intelligence, and that will provide elements of support for the development of policies on Social Services in Catalonia.

Unlike much of the research currently being done in the field of COVID-19, which focuses on infection prediction, survival, disease spread, or diagnosis, INSESS-COVID19 focuses on Social Services, largely forgotten about the equation in pandemic management. In the field of Social Services, the worst is probably yet to come. After the overflow of the health system, will come the economic consequences, and an avalanche of social needs that will require the attention of Social Services over the coming months and perhaps years, and may in the immediate future overflow and collapse the Social Services system of the City Councils and the County Councils in Catalonia. That is why the aim of the study is to shed light on how the local Social Services should begin to prepare for this new scenario.

The INESS-COVID19 study has the collaboration and participation of the Catalan Government, the Catalan Association of Municipalities, the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia and the Barcelona Regional Government, and has been funded by the Center for Development Cooperation of UPC in the framework of the extraordinary call that opened in April on the occasion of the emergency generated by the crisis of COVID19.

The study is led by Dra. Karina Gibert, professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-UPC, and Toni Codina, CEO of the iSocial Foundation, who will lead a multidisciplinary research team made up of experts in social services, knowledge engineers and data scientists. The study also has an advisory committee made up of academics and experts Manuel Aguilar, Carles Alsinet, Maria Assumpció Gonzàlez, Albert Isern, Josep Maria Pascual, Josep Maria Picas and Pilar Rodríguez. The first results of the study are expected to be presented in early September.