Arxius de INTERVIEWS - Punt de Referencia

“We provide accompaniment with a significant educational presence and high involvement”

March 1, 2023/in INTERVIEWS/Tags: acolliment, acull, entrevista, equip

We interview Bàrbara Bort, Coordinator of Acull project in Punt de Referència

By Marta Bach

What word would define the Acull project?

Without doubt it is warmth.

Turning 18 can be a real nightmare for the young person coming out of care. Are we aware, as a society, that not everyone has the same opportunities?

Youth who participate in the Acull project have different challenges than young people who, when reaching the age of 18, have a secure situation thanks to the support of their family. In our case, they do not have family members in the territory who can support them during emancipation, although, in most cases, they maintain very close ties with their family. The challenges they must face are not only related to being young and not having their family close by, but also due to their migrant status and all it entails: learning a new language, a new culture, building new friendships. They need a support network and help with the documents, training, legal, administrative, and work areas.

Tell us about your career within the Acull project.

I have overseen the project for the last 4 years. I joined Punt de Referència in the GR 16-18 group mentoring project and, after a while, I was offered to take on a new group of Referents; later, I started the Acull project. I was very excited because it is a program that makes a lot of sense and there is a great lack of initiatives like this one; and, at the same time, many young people and volunteers in the territory can be enriched by such experiences. Additionally, being able to continue in a job that blended work with young people and volunteers seemed attractive to me.

What makes it different from other similar initiatives?

On one hand, Punt de Referència is an association and does not depend on a commission from an administration or any private company. On the other, there is no alike project, perhaps similar, but not with the same dimensions. We provide accompaniment with a significant educational presence and high involvement between the project technician and the family or welcoming person, where the youngster is the focus of the relationship. A triangular bond is created between the family, the young person and the technician who accompanies and monitors both relationships.

How many young people have been taken in these homes?

The Acull project was created in 2002, five years after the foundation of Punt de Referència. The original intention, which remains intact, is to discriminate positively the group of young migrants who, having turned 18, must emancipate without having their family close by. In these twenty-one years, sixty young people have gone through the project, and we hope to be able to continue offering this opportunity to many more.

However, the project seems to be in crisis now. What is happening?

In recent months and, especially after the pandemic, we have noticed a decrease in the number of families interested in taking in a young person in their home for 9 months. We think it may be due to fatigue after the situation experienced, to uncertainty in the current context with the war in Ukraine, and subsequent economic crisis. We refuse to believe that there is a crisis of values behind it. We are convinced that if enough people really knew about Acull, they would probably overcome the obstacles that prevent families from reaching us; we would then have more welcoming homes to offer to youth who are waiting. We now have 5 youngsters who wish to be taken in by a family, to build new bonds and receive the emotional support that a family’s warmth can provide.

Does one have to be very special to take in your home a young person for 9 months?

No, certainly not. It is true that the most important thing is motivation to include a person from another origin and with a generational distance into your family dynamics and cohabitation. And above all, you need to be emotionally available to establish new bonds. Recently, a welcoming family summarized it as: you must have “space at home and in the heart”.In practice, all you need is a free room, a location in the metropolitan area of Barcelona and enough time to share at least one meal a day with the hosted person.

You have accompanied many boys and girls who have been through Acull. What would you say they take from this experience in their life story?

Naturally, what they value most are the bonds! During these years, we have estimated that approximately 70% of the bonds created are maintained over time, until today. They also highly value the fact that, through language immersion, they improve their linguistic competence and thus have better opportunities to access the labour market, training and contact with the community. Finally, they value the emotional and useful support they receive, both from the family and Punt de Referència!

Bàrbara, if you had to convince a person or a family to be part of the Acull project, what would you tell them?

I would tell them about the people who have participated in it before and how much they value it as a very enriching experience. Everything has been much easier than they expected and having the support of Punt de Referència has given them peace of mind and security. They knew they were not alone.

Choose a moment, a memory…

The truth is that I have wonderful memories of the foster homes I have accompanied during these four years, and it is difficult for me to single out one. I have learned something from all of them and they have helped me as a person. The most significant thing has been watching the bonds grow, with a variety of forms they take and regardless of how long they last. All of them are meaningful and have reminded me again that people are stronger when they walk together.

“Having a home allows young people to work, to continue their education, and have more opportunities in the future”

December 23, 2022/in INTERVIEWS/Tags: opportunities

We talk with David Marmolejo, Coordinator of ‘Llars El Pas’ project

By Marta Bach

· Tell us about the starting point and why ‘Llars El Pas’ project was created. In Punt de Referència we saw that the youngsters who left assisted flats when they turned 21 had great difficulties accessing a rented room, mainly due to economic issues, but also because of racist attitudes. At the same time, we had diagnosed that some of these boys and girls were not sufficiently prepared to be able to face emancipation without a minimum monitoring by an educator. Three years is not enough time to consolidate an emancipation project! For this reason, we decided to innovate and create an itinerary that would link the process of educational support with a long-term vision.

· Does ‘Llars El Pas’ contemplate different phases depending on each personal situation? Yes. It consists of 4 phases of accompaniment according to the process in which each young person is. In the first one, young people are at the initial stage of creating their training and work path and have no income, but they need a place to live, like everyone else, and they need continued educational support. It is designed for young people who have participated in the Acull project. In the second phase, the young person already has a clear idea about the work or training plan. They have a first job and a fixed income, even if it is precarious and the income is low. The aim is for them to be able to consolidate and complete their work or training plan. Thanks to this project, there are young people who can combine their job (with a low income or part-time) and continue their training, a matter that will allow them to have more opportunities in the future. This is what ‘Llars El Pas’ is about: to improve the conditions of young people so that they can continue their studies, like any young persons of their generation who usually have family support while they pursue their education.The third phase is aimed at young people who have already achieved their training and employment goals. It would be the case of a boy or girl who has obtained a middle or high grade, and this has allowed them to have a good job with an unlimited work contract. Job and economic security make it easier to prepare for your exit thanks to good income management, for example, and follow your own path to emancipation. Among the options we work with are rooms for rent in shared flats, social rent, or cooperative housing. The latter would be the 4th and last phase of the project.

· Having a home is undoubtedly a gain and a relief, but is ‘Llars El Pas’ much more than that? Absolutely, we work on all aspects with a holistic vision, even those that are not a high priority, but are important for their development process. We start from what is necessary and essential: having a job, studies, a support network, knowing how to manage a flat… But we also focus on the more emotional areas such as communication, living together with peers and communal living with neighbours (the micro and the macro group), being part of a neighbourhood, knowing where the services are (health, sports…).

· You who share many moments with young people out of care, what is the main difficulty in their day-to-day life? Society demands total emancipation from these young people without any assurance of success. An emancipation that the young people of their generation reach 11 years later (at the age of 29). When young people leave the family environment, they usually have an education and a job, and, above all, the emotional support of their network (family, friends, etc.). Something that the young person out of care does not have. Fighting loneliness and at the same time moving forward, without having this support network, is very complicated and distressing for them. · Is cooperative housing also a way for these young people? Cooperative housing with assignment of use (in cohousing) is a very good solution to fight speculation in the housing market. Based on this idea, three years ago we sought an alliance with Sostre Cívic, an entity that promotes this model. At a time, La Balma building, located in the Poblenou neighbourhood of Barcelona, was being promoted. After many meetings, joint forethoughts, shared goals and anxieties, in September 2021, two young people from Punt de Referència moved in to live together in La Balma. This was a major gain for them, since besides being able to have a home of their own, they became part of a neighbourhood group. This means generating a sense of belonging, of being useful, of forming a network and, at the end of the day, becoming two more neighbours of Poblenou.

· Which alliances have you built to promote the creation of solidarity flats for the group of young people out of care? The Sostre Cívic cooperative and the Mambré Foundation have been the key to making this project a reality. And obviously, the community of residents of La Balma who have welcomed the two young people as just another neighbours. Something so simple and commonplace in other environments, for these young people it equates to feel like equals.

· ‘Llar El Pas’ was born out of a social need, it was a pilot test and is it now a transformative reality? Yes. The fact that it started as a pilot test validates the goal of the proposal and its quality. And this encourages us to replicate this model with other young people and cooperatives. There are young people waiting for this opportunity! And we and society must give them a real and viable answer. Because our proposal is truly emancipatory!

· How do boys and girls experience this possibility? They receive it as a great opportunity and the outcome of their efforts. The message we send them is that we believe in them and that a better future is possible. At the end of the day, this project is an opportunity for the boys and girls to have a stable home where they can continue to build their future, where their right to decent housing is guaranteed, but above all to participate in a networking space, of mutual support and shared space which, we think, contributes to better emotional health.

· Do we need more cooperative housing opportunities for youngsters out of care? Obviously, we must continue to claim more opportunities and real housing policies that meet the current needs of society, and more specifically, for the young people we work with. The struggle must be common, with transformative and permanent solutions, above all, if we want things to change for the better.

“Working with young people from the emotional bond and the recognition that this generates is one of our pillars”

December 1, 2022/in INTERVIEWS/Tags: formation, mentoring, mentory, migrants, volunteers

We talk with Laura Terradas, Mentoring Coordinator at Punt de Referència

By Sara Montesinos

How would you define Punt de Referència in one word?

Network, Punt de Referència is network.

What is your link with the entity? Tell us your story with Punt de Referència.

I arrived at Punt de Referència in April 2014. For me, at that time it was an important opportunity, I had studied education and pedagogy but without connection to the social sector. The person who interviewed me bet on me in this sense, the specialization would be learned in the organization.I started by covering a six-month leave and then they suggested I take over the projects Referents and Acull. Later, in 2017, I was asked to lead the coordination, we were growing as an entity, and I accepted. At the beginning of 2022 I became Mentoring Coordinator when the general coordination was divided into mentoring and housing. I also do consultancy training since the service was created in 2015; basically, we train other entities in the Referents methodology to accompany vulnerable young people through social mentoring.

What differentiates you from other support projects?

We organize ourselves in work committees; we make proposals and adapt them according to the context and situation of the youngsters. For me there are two important aspects that differentiate us. Firstly, the work from the emotional bond, this is very easy to say and very complex to do. When I speak about an emotional bond, it is because we work from the technical side as well as accompanying through bonds of trust, working from here means that we focus on emotional health. The affective bond allows us to work on various perspectives, also self-esteem, self-concept, and self-expectations. All this is built through the gaze of others, which is why it is so valuable to work from the emotional bond in emancipation. Answering the question of who you want to be when you grow up can be done more strongly from the perspective of someone who trusts you and conveys it to you. Working from the emotional bond generates recognition, from here we can work on self-esteem and self-expectation. This is one of our pillars, working from the emotional bond and the recognition it generates. The other aspect that differentiates us is the community perspective, resilience is not just individual, it is also communal. Without a network or community, young people can hardly have the self-esteem or the opportunities to show their potential. Through the links we generate, they transform their perspective, transfer this learning to their immediate surroundings, share it in their network and raise awareness in their close environment, as well as in other young people and volunteers. They explain what they experience here and bring other young people. For me, this dimension sets us apart, but all this cannot be done alone; for this to be possible, all the training and support we provide to build the bond is very important. All this strengthens community from what is generated through the bonds and close networks. We also spur community through the network, we work with other entities to build it.

What is the range of accompaniments and supports that young people can benefit from?

Young people who participate in Punt de Referència can do so with mentoring, from accompaniment to emancipation and/or to study. There is also housing support; foster homes, projects for other stages of emancipation and assisted flats. Finally, there is also participation, with projects such as Som Llavor, an audiovisual creation, and El Trajecte, a socio-educational accompaniment. These are the three lines we work with.

Which have been the most successful projects?

When people ask me this, it’s Referents Project that comes to mind. It is the proposal that gave birth to Punt de Referènia 25 years ago and it’s still valid. Every year it has volunteers, and we take it to other territories, but the essence, the objective and the methodology remain valid after all these years. Sometimes there are educational or social intervention projects that are more circumstantial. However, Referents is timeless and that is a very strong point in addition, particularly, to the impacts it generates; results from the latest studies indicate that there are benefits for both the young people and the volunteers.

And the main obstacles?

For me, the main hindrance are the resources. Punt de Referència has always succeeded so far, but to do the projects we do, financial resources are needed and to obtain them every year is a major effort. Building projects and sustaining them when you continue to bet on quality and not quantity it is complex nowadays and becomes quite a challenge in the economic sphere.

What support network do you have?

We participate in several federations, in addition to working in a network with local entities. In Maresme and Vallès counties, for example, we have networked with local bodies and entities that were also working in the field, especially the cities of Mataró, Sabadell, and Terrassa. We are also part of federations that focus on advocacy, awareness, and generation of resources for professionals. We are the founders of the Social Mentorship Coordinating body and we are also part of FEPA, ECAS and the Catalan Foundation for Social Volunteering. Through these entities we also participate in the Third Sector Table.

If you had to choose a moment, a memory…

A very recent one comes to mind… About six or seven years ago I met a young man who went through the whole process of referents, mentoring etc. At the time I was doing tutorials for the Trajecte project, he took part in group leisure activities and sometimes we had confronted one another on gender issues. Now it had been a long time since I had spoken to him, but he came to the celebration of the 25^th anniversary of Punt de Referència. When we met, he said “I had to come see you!”, I thought it was nice. It is very meaningful for me and for Punt de Referència, sometimes you don’t know if the accompaniment creates a long-term impact and over time you see it does, clearly. An emotional bond was created which is what we really look for!

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