Pérez-Llorca, Iberdrola, ASEAF and Universidad Pontificia de Comillas promote foster care in Spain

Pérez-Llorca, Iberdrola, ASEAF and Universidad Pontificia Comillas have presented the guide "Conocer para proteger", a tool aimed at promoting foster care in Spain by identifying the rights and obligations of foster families, with the objective of strengthening legal certainty within the child protection system.

At an event held at Pérez-Llorca’s offices in Madrid, the collaborating organisations presented the Guide for foster families "Conocer para proteger". The technical tool has been designed to clarify the regulatory framework for foster care in Spain through a multidisciplinary analysis that underlines the strategic relevance of public-private collaboration.

The welcome remarks were delivered by Constanza Vergara, Partner and COO of Pérez-Llorca, who highlighted that the collaboration reflects how legal knowledge can be placed at the service of the most vulnerable groups.

Following the opening, Adriana de la Osa, President of ASEAF, presented the guide as a fundamental instrument for foster families to understand their rights and obligations, underlining the tool’s "enormous transformative potential". She noted that it will allow these families to stop being considered merely users of the system and become active agents within it. She also stated that there are currently nearly 20,000 children under guardianship living in residential centres, of whom more than 1,200 are under the age of six.

A legal framework for the protection of minors

The institutional opening continued with Patricia Bezunartea Barrio, Director General for Family Diversity and Social Services at the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda, who reinforced the need to transform the protection system by promoting foster care as the only solution, stating:

"It is a priority to promote favourable environments so that all families can carry out their functions with the appropriate support. The figures speak for themselves regarding the scale of the challenge we face as a society; it is necessary to offer family-based solutions that avoid institutionalisation through positive parenting".

A multidisciplinary ecosystem: technical rigour and social reality

The meeting included a round table moderated by Myriam Cabrera, Director of the Chair for Children’s Rights at Universidad Pontificia Comillas, with the participation of