26 human resources managers from 14 member organisations and 12 municipalities are looking for solutions to the difficulties in recruiting, retaining and motivating professionals in the social services sector.

The InnoLabs are a quarterly co-creation space for iSocial member entities and other stakeholders, in which we analyse complex challenges in the sector and seek innovative solutions through experimentation environments and real test beds that put the person at the centre and at the same time integrate and activate all the agents of the innovation ecosystem.

The first InnoLab started in May and will run until September, with the aim of finding answers to the difficulties and challenges faced by the social services sector in relation to its workforce. The transformations that professional roles are undergoing in the sector are generating growing problems when it comes to recruiting, hiring, retaining and motivating professionals in the sector, and are expressed in the form of various difficulties such as bureaucratisation, limited timetables, emergencies, political interference, digital training, burn-out, the failure of the care model, the marginal social perception, paternalism, etc.

In this first InnoLab, 26 human resources managers from 14 iSocial member organisations and 12 local councils are taking part in several face-to-face and online work sessions. The InnoLab will culminate in the drafting and publication of a report, which iSocial will present in November, containing recommendations and proposals aimed at the entire social services sector to address the challenges analysed.

The InnoLab will be led and energised by the experts in management and human resources in the social services sector, Lluís Casado and Guy Giménez, regular collaborators of Fundación iSocial.

DigitaliSSB is led by iSocial, in partnership with the URV, the Grífols Foundation and 19 local councils and county councils.

This is a 3-year project (2023-2025) led by the iSocial Foundation, which has been financed by Next Generation funds from the Department of Social Rights of the Generalitat de Catalunya. On 22 May, a kick-off meeting was held with the 19 participating local councils and county councils.

The project will develop and implement two technological solutions aimed at improving the social intervention of the professional teams of primary care social services of the Local Administrations. The first technological solution, DigitaliSSB-Intervention, will facilitate the improvement of communication and the relationship, both between professionals and between professionals and users of the Basic Areas of Social Services, plus a self-management service for users and a management of group activities. It will also have different modules for sharing data and documents with a biometric signature platform, with data sources from other administrations and with “file management” information systems. It will also have a virtual assistant that will provide answers to requested information and other user-friendly tools (resources map, social aid simulator, personal space) to offer citizens guidance on the services and resources in the territory that can respond to their social needs and, in the case of citizens who are already users of social services, a personal space in which they can have all the information on their social history with the Basic Area of Social Services and manage their relationship with social professionals (appointments, communication with professionals, etc.).

The second solution, DigitaliSSB-QdC, is a solution for decision making, planning and evaluation of social care, in the form of Dashboards for the 18 participating Core Areas, to be used for analysis, decision making, planning and evaluation by the responsible persons. They will be developed and implemented using the Power BI tool and service, one for each of the Basic Areas of Social Services participating in the project. The information obtained will be consolidated on the basis of the people assisted and will be transformed into useful information for analysis and decision-making on the people assisted by the social services, the services provided, the costs of the services and the workload of the different professionals in each of the Basic Areas, among others.

In a first phase, the first 4 Dashboards are expected to be developed for four of the participating Local Administrations, and at the same time the digital application that a specialised company will start to develop from September onwards will be defined in a participatory manner.

The project is promoted by a group formed by the iSocial Foundation, which is leading the project; the Rovira i Virgili University Foundation; the Víctor Grífols y Lucas Foundation and its Chair of Bioethics at the University of Vic; and the technology company Mass Factory linked to the Autonomous University of Barcelona. At the same time, it has the collaboration of Barcelona City Council as a knowledge partner, and the participation of 18 Basic Municipal and County Social Services Areas: Tarragona City Council, Lleida City Council, Girona City Council, Reus City Council, Manresa City Council, Amposta City Council, Calafell City Council, Banyoles City Council, Garrotxa Social Action Consortium, Vallès Oriental Regional Council, Mancomunitat La Plana, La Noguera County Council, Pla d’Urgell County Council, Pallars Jussà County Council, Pallars Sobirà County Council, Alt Penedès County Council, Alt Camp County Council and Ribera d’Ebre County Council.