The figure created by the Government to protect children from harassment and abuse fails in its implementation

A 2nd year ESO student attempted suicide last year in a public institute in Madrid. Sitting in the back row of the classroom during English class, she tried to cut her wrists. The teacher, alarmed, ran to call the welfare coordinator to intervene, but she had an anxiety attack when she found out what had happened.. She was completely blocked and didn't know how to act.. “She was an interim physics teacher, who had recently arrived at the institute.. It was the first year he taught and he found that as soon as he arrived.. Either you are very prepared or you don't know how to react,” says Rocío Díaz Conde, national head of Social Action of the CSIF union.

This case shows the school's lack of resources to help its students.. The new figure of the welfare and protection coordinator, created by the Government in schools and institutes to protect students from discomfort, harassment and abuse, is turning out to be “a failure”, according to the educational community. A study published this Monday by the NGO Educo denounces that the regulatory development of state legislation carried out by the regional governments is “irregular” and “insufficient” and that “the implementation is even worse”. Because?

“This figure was already born denatured” because “the Government did not regulate very well what it had to do,” explains Paula San Pedro, co-author of the report and Political Advocacy coordinator at Educo.. He says that the Executive left everything at the mercy of the CCAA, which, in turn, passed the responsibility to the educational centers. These are “the last link in the chain and have received all the burden”. “Schools have said they can't do much because they don't have resources,” he warns.

“The figure is poorly designed and has not been implemented properly. It is impossible to be efficient. Nobody knows very well what they do and there are no references in educational centers. It will not have the capacity to respond to the phenomena that are occurring in the classrooms,” adds San Pedro.

More violence

Since 2019, there has been a 40% increase in notifications of violence against children and adolescents. Spain is already the European country with the highest proportion of minors between 10 and 19 years of age who suffer from a mental health problem (21%, compared to 16% of the European average).

According to the Anar Foundation, since 2008 there has been a 300% increase in cases of sexual abuse of minors. The Ombudsman's report on victims of pedophilia in the Church maintains that 15.5% of those surveyed who reported abuse suffered it in the educational field (5.9%, in religious schools and 9.6%, in secular centers). Furthermore, 29.5% of children have been victims of bullying in the school environment.. You have to go back to 1991 to find so many suicides among children between 10 and 14 years old.

In this very complicated school context, the Government decided to create the figure of the well-being and protection coordinator, included in the Lomloe of 2020 and in the Child Protection Law of 2021. Its objective was to protect students from harassment, abuse and mental health disorders, as well as convert educational centers into spaces where children could feel safe.. Each school, both public and private, both secular and religious, was required to have a person in charge of managing problems, channeling complaints, promoting respect for diversity and training teachers, parents and students.

But the reality is that “no one in schools wants to be a well-being coordinator, a figure that barely has any free time and does not offer financial compensation,” says Díaz Conde.. So, in the end, “it's up to the last one to arrive, who has to take on this task without proper training.”

According to Educo's analysis, no autonomous community approves of its implementation of the figure of the well-being coordinator, “which is leaking everywhere and has not been correctly established in all educational centers”. These are the problems they have detected:

1. Territorial disparity

To begin with, the regulatory development is different in each autonomous community, because educational powers are transferred. This “gives rise to doubts and insecurities among professionals,” says the NGO.

Educo has analyzed all the regional regulations except that of Castilla y León, which has not yet been published. Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Galicia have developed them late, a year late. In seven regional governments (Catalonia, Madrid, the Basque Country, Murcia, Asturias, Cantabria and Navarra) it has been done through a circular, which has no regulatory nature and, therefore, is not mandatory for the centers.. La Rioja has approved a decree, which is binding, but, “in general, each autonomy has different regulations, and they are all annual, which shows that they have little chance of being consolidated,” says San Pedro.

2. Unclear profiles

The central government regulations do not establish which profiles should access the position and the regulatory developments of up to eight autonomous communities do not specify it either.. “This lack of definition affects when choosing the most appropriate person to carry out this role.”

“There are many differences between those who assume the profile. From a History teacher to a counselor. They are people with different training needs,” says San Pedro.

3. Lack of training

Only two autonomous communities require initial training for teachers, psychologists, counselors or therapeutic personnel who assume the tasks of well-being coordinators.. In any case, the training is “insufficient”, according to Educo, since it covers between 10 and 30 hours. “They are very theoretical classes, they do not give practical answers and there is no training, for example, in conflict management or children's rights. The duration of the courses is very uneven. Furthermore, once the training has been carried out, there is no one to provide support,” says San Pedro, who asks himself: “How is the coordinator going to train the rest of the teachers and the families if he has not been well trained?”

4. Not enough time

In four autonomous communities, the regulations do not establish that well-being coordinators have free hours for their task. In the rest, they set between one and three a week, “clearly insufficient time, which is only enough to take care of the most serious cases, ignoring other issues such as prevention or training.”

5. No incentives

No autonomous community has a budget allocation for the Wellbeing coordinator. Only three (Catalonia, the Canary Islands and Galicia) reflect in their regulations that they should receive some type of incentive or financial remuneration.

“It is not required that the new figure occupy a permanent position, allowing it to fall to interim staff who will probably not remain at the center for more than a year and whose lack of knowledge of it may represent an obstacle in the development of their functions.”

San Pedro also sees little institutional support: “The figure has not had sufficient impetus from the Ministry of Education and its weight is very marginal.”. Governance and support structures are lacking: the unanimous complaint is the isolation in which coordinators find themselves when carrying out their functions. “They do not have all the support they need within the school nor do they have an external network to support them in their prevention and intervention work.”

Educo recommends approving a decree at the state level with common minimums where a specific profile, dedication and budget are established and training is regulated.. “It is about professionalizing the figure so that it is trained, trained and prepared. “There must be a political commitment, from the regulatory to the budgetary.”