SOS Children's Villages celebrates the publication of the UNE 309001 Standard, a standard for intervention in residential care that aims to improve the quality of care received by the more than 16,000 children and adolescents who grow up in this form of alternative care in Spain.
This standard, promoted and led by the direct care organisation for children, has been developed over the last year in a Standardization Committee at the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, made up of professionals from SOS Children's Villages, representatives from Central and Regional Administrations, universities, NGOs, certifying bodies and other experts and actors involved in the care of vulnerable children, as well as young people who have been through the protection system and have contributed their own experience.
The UNE 309001 Standard, which impacts the child protection system as a whole, is part of the National Deinstitutionalisation Strategy of the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 which, in line with the European Child Guarantee and the State Action Plan for the Implementation of the European Child Guarantee (2022-2030), aims to transform residential centres and update the models of intervention with children and adolescents deprived of parental care.
The vice-president of SOS Children's Villages, Javier Fresneda, says that "with the publication of this regulation we are taking a crucial step towards strengthening the child protection system in Spain. At SOS Children's Villages we have used our experience to promote quality in residential care and ensure that these environments are safe, appropriate, optimal and personalised for children and adolescents, who should be treated as unique beings".
"The UNE 309001 Standard is based on the ISO 9001 international standard for quality management systems and the know-how that SOS Children's Villages has accumulated over more than 50 years of professional experience in the field of residential care, as well as all the parties that have participated in its development," explains the Project Manager of the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, Marta Fernández, who was the Secretary of the Committee that developed the standard.
The key to the new standard lies in the creation of strong and stable attachment bonds with unconditional, available and competent caregivers as a basic condition for the healthy and holistic development of children and adolescents and to ensure their well-being. They are the centre around which the standard has been developed, which includes good practices based on the family residential foster model implemented by SOS Children's Villages. Once this certifiable standard is approved, the next step will be to specify and establish the following phases with certification bodies.
