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Assistance, Recovery and Reception Service (SARA)

This is a citywide municipal ambulatory service that offers specific ambulatory care to victims of male violence (women, children and adolescents, and LGBTI people, or people from their close circle directly affected by this violence). It also offers advice to professionals and people from the victims’ circle.

Opening times:

  • Meeting by prior appointment: Visits must be arranged by prior appointment by calling 900 922 357 (Mondays to Thursdays, 9 am to 7 pm, and Fridays, 9 am to 4 pm).
  • Emergency meeting: 9 am to 1 pm, Mondays to Fridays, without prior appointment (C/ Marie Curie, 16).

Email address: sara@bcn.cat

Alternatively, outside of SARA’s public opening times, you can contact the Barcelona Social Emergency and Urgent Care Centre (CUESB, C/ Llacuna, 25), which provides support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Telephone: 900 703 030

Furthermore, three guides have been compiled to offer guidelines on how to act in cases of gender violence. They are aimed at:

  • Women: recommendations on security and prevention, as well as a guide on how to act in cases of aggression.
  • Communities and neighbours: if a possible case of gender violence at home comes to light, this guide offers guidelines on how to act.
  • Commerce: if a case of gender violence is detected involving a woman customer, this guide is recommended

You can view and download prevention and protection materials in all available languages in this repository (Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese and Tagalog)

The service deals with the various kinds of gender violence: partner violence, harassment for the fact of being a woman or identifying as LGBTI, gender violence at work or in the family sphere, sexual violence, forced marriages and so on.

It is the gateway to public and private emergency accommodation and long-stay resources for people experiencing situations of gender violence.

The centre has a multidisciplinary team

The team comprises professionals trained in various fields (social work, social education, psychology, law and job placement) who offer comprehensive care so they can work on the recovery processes of the people they attend to, whether they need accommodation resources or not.

It offers

On an individual level

  • Information and advice.
  • Comprehensive personalised treatment throughout the process of recovering from the violence experienced, in accordance with the needs of the person attended to.
  • Access to specific protection resources for gender violence whenever necessary.
  • A job placement service.

On a group level

  • Various kinds of group treatment.

On a community level

  • Prevention and social awareness.
  • Advice and support for professionals of other services that intervene in situations of gender violence.

Who it is aimed at

  • Adult women in the city of Barcelona who experience, or have experienced, any kind of gender violence.
  • Children and adolescents who live, or have lived, in contexts of gender violence. They may or may not be sons and daughters of the women attended to, as SARA also attends to:
  • Sons and daughters of women who have died as a result of violence (murder or suicide provoked by the aggressor) or any other cause.
  • Sons and daughters who experience, or have experienced, male violence, at the request of the mother, the father (not the abuser), or the carer.
  • Adolescents who are victims of abusive sexual relationships, either sporadic or in a couple, or other manifestations of gender violence where neither the mother nor the father are involved, or the current partner of the mother or father.
  • People who identify as LGBTI who experience, or have experienced, any kind of gender violence.
  • People in the close circle of those directly affected by gender violence.

Requirements to access the service for women, children and adolescents

  • They must live in the municipality of Barcelona.
  • There is a current situation of gender violence or the effects of gender violence experienced previously are still felt.

SARA attends to all women, children and adolescents, and LGBTI people who meet both requirements, irrespective of their age, physical or mental state of health, disability, legal situation, sexual orientation or where they come from, and without taking into account whether:

  • They are registered (empadronats) as living in the city of Barcelona or not. The real situation prevails over the administrative situation.
  • Their situation has been legally regularised or not in the case of foreign nationals.
  • They have reported the situation of violence experienced or not.
  • They are living with the aggressor or have broken off the relationship with them.

Requirements to access the service for people in the close circle of those people

People who live in Barcelona may ask for help or advice, or even people who live in other municipalities, if their request is in relation to women, children or adolescents, or LGBTI people who are victims of gender violence that do live in the municipality of Barcelona.

Access channels

  • Direct access.
  • Referral from another service (the City Council itself or the services of the Barcelona Circuit against Violence towards Women).

Type of access

  • Emergency and arranged.
  • In person, by phone and by email.

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