The University of Barcelona leads the European cross-border project coParticiPA, to promote the participation of people in vulnerable situations in the network of social services, both basic and specialized, in the bordering territories on the sides of the Pyrenees, in Spain, Andorra and France. The project, which lasts three years, is directed by the Social Work Research and Innovation Group (GRITS) of the School of Social Work of the UB, which is led by researcher Violeta Quiroga, and has funding from the program European POCTEFA 2021-2027
The project began with a double day, in the Historic Building and in the Mundet Campus of the UB, where more than one hundred people from different administrations, social entities and universities from the three regions took part.
The project
In the three years that coParticiPA will last, almost thirty entities, training institutions and public organizations will work collaboratively on the design, prototyping and evaluation of a cross-border participation program. The objective is to strengthen community ties and promote the empowerment of vulnerable people, to facilitate their involvement in decision-making and the management of social resources in their communities.
The project wants to influence basic services and six specialized areas of social intervention: childhood and adolescence; aging; migration, disability, health and mental health; social exclusion and community action, and university and continuing education.
Main actions
The coPartiPA project has three main lines of actions. Firstly, a collaborative diagnosis will be carried out in order to analyze the needs and capacities for action of all the agents involved (people served, professionals, management positions, etc.) in each of the participating territories. This phase includes a qualitative study, with more than 1,500 participants from different areas of social intervention, which is the basis on which a cross-border program of people's participation must be built.
The second phase of the project consists of creating and “piloting” the PTP-P. This process includes developing a digital tool for intervention processes promoted by various agents, which will be complemented with a suitcase of pedagogical resources. The pilot plan for this tool will be carried out with more than 1,500 agents from all territories and areas of intervention participating in the project.
Finally, the third and final phase of the project consists of a process of evaluating the implementation and results of the PTP-P pilot test, which must also serve to identify the key aspects and possible obstacles to transferring it in other territories.
The innovative aspect of this project lies in its objective of empowering people served by social services, so that they have the power of agency to transform their vulnerable situations. For this reason, the project is committed to a methodology based on "designer thinking" (known as design thinking), which seeks to generate collective solutions from the identification of the needs of each territory and field of action, the testing of these prototype solutions and the evaluation of the entire process. All this is combined with the consolidation of cross-border networks of social services, the sharing of work methodologies, and professional and student exchange.
Participating institutions
In addition to the University of Barcelona, the University of Girona (UdG), the University of Andorra (UdA), and the French institutions FAIRE ESS and the Saint-Simon Institute (ISS) participate in coParticiPA. Likewise, the project has two associated public organizations: the Consell Comarcal del Alt Empordà (CCAE) and the research center of the Andorran Government, Andorra Research Innovation. Likewise, it has as partners five entities specialized in social intervention (Fundación Idea, Cáritas Girona, ARSEAA, ANRAS and Fundación Clara Rabassa) and the iSocial Foundation, which will contribute to the development of digital solutions. Finally, beyond these main partners, the project has the support of twenty-four associated entities.
