What we do

Starting point

We seek to transform a social care model that cannot lag behind what human rights standards and our society require of it and which must be equal to the changing environment.

A rapidly-changing society

For some decades now, our society has been immersed in accelerated and far-reaching social changes, some of which have heightened in the wake of the recent economic crisis. It is a model that was conceived in a context of industrial

development, population structure, civic awareness and situations of vulnerability that were very different to those of the present day. Answers that probably worked very well in the past are no longer suitable, and even less so in view of the challenges that our society will have to contend with in the coming decades.

The impact of ICT

It is particularly the attributes linked to ICT (innovation, accessibility, immediacy, transparency…) that have transformed the dynamics of the global economy, expectations, behaviours, lifestyles, work tools and social relationships between citizens, generating

a new culture in which the capacity to choose, access to information and to knowledge and to demand our rights are now all a given. And if we consider the important social changes generated by these attributes (movement, diversity, the demand for efficiency, changes in the production model…), this all conforms a context in which everything moves and is transformed, and the whys and the wherefores of the past are no longer useful for today nor for the society of tomorrow.

Rights-based culture

In recent decades, Human Rights international law has pointed the way forward in terms of finding answers for this new scenario. The universal nature of Human Rights obliges States to guarantee fully effective

rights for everyone, regardless of their situation and capacities, guaranteeing their dignity, individual autonomy, equality, non-discrimination, participation and inclusion in the community. People have gone from being passive objects or receivers of assistance and care to becoming active owners or holders of rights.

A model that no longer fits

Whereas in other areas of life citizens can manage virtually everything online; they purchase and hire personalised consumer products; they obtain information and immediate answers about things that concern them; they can choose and decide

from an enormous range of options; in the near future, driver-less cars or 5D technology will place us in an even more immediate and accelerated environment… Social action is still constrained by analogue and attendance-based systems, year-long waiting lists, predefined and standardised service portfolios and prescription without freedom of choice or no control over the care received or solutions whose efficiency is dubious and with an impact yet to be demonstrated.

Far-reaching changes

Phenomena that are now consolidated and well-known have produced far-reaching changes on individuals and society: new socio-economic dynamics generate greater inequality and increase the risk of social exclusion; an ageing population caused

by increased life expectancy and falling birth rates; the change in the structure of homes as a result of the new family models; the advent of women to the job world and the transformation of gender roles; mutations in paid employment in the context of a globalised and tertiary economy; the growing cultural diversity in urban areas prompted by accelerated migratory flows; and above all, the penetration of technology, information and communication technologies in all domains of human activity.

New social vulnerabilities

These transformations have generated a new and much more complex risk and social vulnerability structure than that of our industrial past, prompting the emergence of new phenomena such as lack of job qualifications, precarious employment,

residential vulnerability, energy poverty, gentrification, loneliness and relational isolation, difficulty in achieving a suitable work-life balance, the technology gap, etc.

Thwarted or insufficient progress

The commitment to respect the dignity, self-determination and the rights of people who require personal support and for the purpose of social inclusion has translated into the conceptualisation of the new Person-Centred Care (PCC) model.

Even so, the headway made in the implementation of this model clashes with an offer of services that renders personalisation, the right to an independent life and the response to needs that will guarantee inclusion in the community difficult.