Chile · 22 October, 2019

EUROsociAL+ accompanies the Government of Chile in strengthening of child-based programmes

This action coincides with the Chile’s National Agreement for Children, which seeks to promote the integral development of all girls, boys and adolescents

Santiago de Chile was the scene of the first specialist advisory mission to the Deputy Minister’s Office for Children aimed at strengthening the programmes being run by the “Chile Grows With You” Social Protection Subsystem. Two Italian experts from the “Istituto degli Innocenti”, Erika Bernacchi and Luca Bicocchi, and the Spanish expert Ferrán Casas, participated in the mission.

The ChCC Subsystem ensures the access of all children to a set of universal benefits (which promote development) in combination with an offer of differentiated services and benefits (for children from socially and/or economically vulnerable families), and specialised benefits (for individually vulnerable children who might be at risk). In general terms, the Subsystem aims to ensure the deployment of the maximum development potential of all children in Chile within a theoretical framework that focuses on the following aspects: ecological model, approach to rights, gender approach and cultural and territorial relevance.

The framework of this action coincide with the National Agreement for Children, which seeks to promote the integral development of all children and adolescents in Chile so that they reach the maximum development of their capacities by generating mechanisms that allow acting in time in order to prevent any of them from being left behind, as well as protecting those children and adolescents who have been put at risk so that they can get back on to a development path that contributes to enhancing their wellbeing. In this context, the Government of Chile requested the intervention of EUROsociAL+ to support the process of review and improvement of the programmes of the Chile Grows with You Subsystem, while at the same time moving the definition of an information system for monitoring individual child and adolescent development.

The first day of the mission began with the greetings of the Under-secretary for Children, Carol Bown, followed by the presentations and/or speeches of the representatives of the Under-secretariat for Children, the Ministry for Health, the Delegation of the Union European in Chile, the Chilean Agency for International Development Cooperation, the International Affairs Unit of the Ministry for Social and Family Development, the Social Policy Area of the EUROsociAL Programme and the team of consultants.

During the first three days of the mission, the Deputy Minister’s Office for Children organised the detailed presentation of the different programs that make up the Chile Grows with You Subsystem by the people responsible for each one of them and a field visit to the Communal Children’s Network located in Huechuraba. The last two days were devoted to specifying part of the preliminary work planned by the two consultancies, exploring the follow-up modalities and beginning the drafting of the work plan to be carried out in the months following the mission.

Country: Chile
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Policy area: Social policies