Online life has helped us create new virtual communities.

More than a year ago I received the invitation to be part of a reflection group on children in the protection system in Spain, coordinated by Alberto Rodriguez and Javier Múgica and in which we participate Antonio Ferrandis, mi partner of CI Spirals Pepa Horno, Marta Llauradó and my almost double namesake F. Javier Romeu Soriano. After these months of online meetings and multiple emails and drafts, last week we jointly published the founding document, Renewing from within. Seven challenges and proposals to improve the child protection system in Spain. The text speaks for itself, and can be downloaded from web page of “Renewing from within”.

Here I want to talk about something a little different: of the process itself. And I'll sum it up in three words: community, growth and awareness.

Community is what we have been creating. It has a part of chance, having met for child protection issues in different spaces. But it also has a part of intention. Make room for online meetings. Write each one their part of the document and revise the texts of the rest. share views, concerns and possible responses. Little by little we have been deepening our relationships, developing a common language that incorporates our different personalities and sensitivities. And we believe that part of the improvements in the protection system go precisely through creating community in many other spaces, with the kids, girls and adolescents and their families, within professional teams and intervention networks.

Further, we have advanced with a perspective of growth. Each person in our group has been collaborating and accompanying processes of the protection system for many years. That's why we can talk about the shortcomings, of the weak points that harm children, girls and adolescents and the families whom it is intended to protect. But we also remember the progress, the changes, sometimes very small, that make some aspects improve. That is why the document wants to collect both the challenges that we see in Spain and some proposals that we know, by personal or professional experience, that have worked before. And this process also makes us who reflect in a group grow.

Why, in the end, It is about developing the consciousness. when we have a “conscious gaze”, as my good friend says and partner at CI Spirals Pepa Horno, we see reality in a deeper way. We identify what happens in children, girls and adolescents and their families, but also in the professional teams and in the systems that would have to provide them with protection and support. And we also recognize what happens inside us, to channel intuitions and sensations towards concrete proposals that improve the lives of many people. We can't do this alone, we need a safe environment, community, help us move forward, to ask ourselves new questions and discover new answers.

From here I send my thanks to this magnificent team, and to life for making it possible.

And I invite you to read the document and pay attention to the following steps (we will be publishing monthly blog entries to continue delving into the different proposals). I see you on the website “Renewing from within”.

in celebration,

F. Javier Romeo