Health and care

20/10/2021 - 16:22

Education. The network of EFCM spaces will be increased from 16 to 20 during this school year.

The roll-out of the plan for education and upbringing in early childhood in Barcelona extends the service offered by municipal spaces for families and child-rearing (EFCM). The newly opened municipal nursery school Els Gats also includes a family and child-rearing space, which has seen the service grow to the point where it is providing support for 1,147 children and their families.

The 2021-2022 school year begins with 17 municipal spaces for families and child-rearing located around the city. The network is set to grow further in the next few months with two new spaces in the district of Nou Barris, in the neighbourhoods of Trinitat Nova and Porta, and another in Sant Martí, in the neighbourhood of La Verneda i la Pau. In just one school year, Barcelona will have increased the number of EFCM facilities from 16 to 20.

The opening of the new spaces could bring the number of places to 1,237, some 500 more than before the pandemic.

An education service for toddlers and their families

Besides the network or municipal nursery schools, people in the city have access to a network of municipal family and child-rearing spaces. This public service offers support and assistance for toddlers up to the age of three and their families, operating from local facilities such as nursery schools and community centres.

The EFCM are designed to promote family bonds, children getting together to play and support between families, as well as professional support for child-rearing from the perspective of health and education.

More social and education spaces

The pilot project for the EFCM Aurora was launched in the Raval neighbourhood in 2019, to provide a social and educational dimension at some spaces in the network. Now this dimension is set to be expanded at five more family and child-rearing spaces.

The characteristic which sets a social and educational EFCM apart from another is the incorporation of social and educational intervention, with singular support for socially at-risk families attended to by social services.