A hallmark, a method and another ten years

Trust is a hallmark

The treatment that victims of abuse receive, in different spaces of society, is very often quite poor. The lack of education on this subject is the main reason why, frequently, people do not know how to handle a disclosure, or how to accompany and guide those who have been victims of abuse. This shortcoming has caused bad experiences to multiply, and has often created difficulties when it comes to continuing with legal, therapeutic and reparation processes.

For this reason, the work of Fundación para la Confianza has centred on the idea that welcoming a person must begin from the moment someone hears the first word from a professional at the Foundation. Emphasis has been placed on this, along with a great effort to do specialised, high-quality work that, ultimately, helps the person who needs help to feel as comfortable and welcome as possible.

In this chapter, through two testimonies, we will see how this process is carried out and comes to life.

Marjorie

“The first thing I remember about when I called the Foundation was that a very kind woman answered, and it was really strange, because her voice gave a sense of being firm and centred at the same time, but above all very welcoming”, says Marjorie Massardo, about the first time she contacted the Foundation to ask for help.

“She was telling me: ‘don’t worry, it’s all right, we’ll see what we’re going to do, we have to coordinate a couple of things, but everything is going to be fine’”, Marjorie continues, “and her saying that to me was completely different from what I had been through. I felt a trust that I had never experienced in the long process I had been through, and that I knew I needed, but that, up to that point, I had no idea where to find”.

Marjorie was pursuing a legal process on her own. She had studied law, but had not yet qualified at that point, and for that reason was not practising her profession. A year before approaching the Foundation she had started legal action with her daughter, who at the age of five was the victim of a situation of abuse and violation of her rights. From that situation onwards, she began to realise that what she had studied was starting to make sense to her.

When the legal process began, she understood that “although you might think that someone who studied law could understand how the judicial system works, the reality is very different. Seeing it from the victim’s side, anyone is left completely thrown. You don’t understand how things happen, and how it is that the direct victim and the secondary victims are re-victimised again and again. So this whole process was very hard, and very difficult to cope with”, Marjorie recalls.

It was during that period that the psychologist who was helping her with her therapy recommended that she approach the Foundation. She was convinced, she says, because in that space she would be able to meet people who were going through situations similar to hers, and this was something she had never done.

“More than expectations, I felt a very great anxiety to have support and not feel alone. I was very distressed, worried, in pain, but even so I had faith, trust and a lot of hope”, Marjorie recalls.

That is why, the first time she called, she felt trust, because she was offered help that, up to that moment, she had not felt anywhere else. And, what is more, she could see that help. They asked her for an email describing what her daughter had lived through, and gave her an appointment a couple of days later. Already in all these steps, Marjorie felt an unusual speed.

At the first meeting everything was decisive. She entered a welcoming place, and was seen by a social worker who led her to realise the process she was in, and to “ground herself in reality”, as she describes it. They gave her a projection, and some idea of how long a process like the one she was going through would take, and they offered her a possibility: to join the Mutual Support Groups (GAMU).

She had a very vague idea of what they were, and even though it was explained to her, she found it hard to imagine a space like that, a safe space, something she had not felt for a long time.

“At that time, I was like a robot”, she explains.

She was handling the whole legal process, and also had to fulfil the protective and supportive role with her daughter, and for that, as she says, she needed to be composed and “whole”.

“You feel you can’t fall apart, so that you can be whole for this little person who is going through such a painful experience, and in the end society doesn’t allow you to either, because you have to answer for everything and in the face of everything. I mean, at work, however empathetic they were and however much they supported me, right up to today, you still have to produce, and you’re paid to produce, and there you have to work and function. In front of her I had to be whole so that she could cope with an experience that, if it’s incomprehensible even for adults, imagine for her”.

“So when I got there, to the GAMU, everyone started telling the reasons why they were there, and when it was my turn to speak it was terrible, because I couldn’t hold back. I cried and cried and cried. I felt I was in a space where I could release all that sadness, that anger, that bitterness, that grief, that not understanding anything, which in the end I couldn’t release in other settings, because everywhere I had to be answering for things. Here, on the other hand, I felt it was a safe space because I was with other people who were going through the same thing as me”.

“I felt I had the world on my shoulders, so the GAMU experience was a liberating space, in the sense that I could show myself with all my wounds, with all my pain, with all my weaknesses, where I didn’t need to prove anything, but could be what I really was at that moment: a woman torn apart, a mother in pain and very frightened, and in the end showing a very frightened mother is —above all in legal proceedings— just handing ammunition to the other side. So it was the first time I could feel free and wasn’t going to face questioning or judgement. I could live my pain openly”.

“The social and judicial system is a sexist, adultcentric system, where women are questioned and blamed, so we women always bear the responsibility, we are to blame, or we are lying. A woman, especially a woman who is protecting a sister, a daughter or a niece who is going through such a serious violation of her rights, is always questioned, and we have to keep up a stance that is socially accepted, holding on to tremendous composure and strength to be able to stand up every time we are knocked down at the prosecutor’s office, in the family courts, at the police, or wherever you go”.

At the same time, Marjorie began to receive legal support from the Foundation, after the criminal complaint (querella) they had filed, which was handled with the help of a private lawyer, was provisionally closed (archivo provisional). As she recalls, “The law firm called me, and they were wonderful, they behaved very well, they were very professional, and Juan Pablo (Hermosilla) took the time to explain everything to me at every step”, something she had not had until then in her experience of taking the case through the judicial system, as she explains. In the end, they did not go ahead with criminal proceedings, mainly because her daughter has the protection she needs, and starting legal proceedings would have meant re-victimising her, which was not considered necessary or healthy.

Going through this legal advice, however, opened up other possibilities for her, and connected her with her vocation as a lawyer. Years later, Marjorie decided to take the legal diploma programme that the Foundation offered, and this, in her words, “opened up a world of knowledge and understanding of how things happen, having been a victim, and a questioning that led me to understand that these acts are committed because there is abuse of power. They opened up for me the questioning that these things happen because power exists, and because of all these differences there are in the sexist and patriarchal world, it ends up harming and subjugating always those it finds weakest, who are children and adolescents and women”.

“Today I consider myself a different person, and without a doubt the Foundation helped me with that. This whole process has helped me realise that women in this society are, in the end, absolutely exposed; we are a group of people still relegated to second-class citizens. Many things have to change, and that is why I decided to qualify as a lawyer during this process, because all of this was a push”.

“In my daughter’s therapy processes they told us that this experience cannot determine anyone’s life. It is a stage of life that is the responsibility of someone else, of another being who did a lot of harm, but it cannot define people’s lives. So I understood it that way for myself too. I said ‘no, this is not going to determine my life in negative terms’. And so it was”.

“I think everything added up, everything set me on my way and things fell into place. I feel lucky to have passed through the Foundation, in every opportunity I could, for the extremely professional people I was able to meet, and for opening their doors to me and my daughter, because they gave me tools of every kind, professionally, as a mum and as a woman”.

A crazy dream

By Valentina Correa, Projects Director.

The great advances in history are usually driven by the madness of people who dared to dream big. Surely, for José, James and Juan Carlos it would have been more comfortable to recover from the trauma they had lived through and face the legal process sheltered among their families and those close to them. Nevertheless, moved by a “never again”, they set out to drive a cultural change in which abuse would be unacceptable. José left his familiar world —libraries, reflective walks and solitude— to immerse himself in creating the Foundation as a space to think, research and intervene appropriately and in a welcoming way with people who have been victims.

José knew he could not carry out his initiative alone, and little by little he built a team with which he has been discovering the practices that define our character. These lines are to acknowledge all the people who have joined this dream, especially those who, as volunteers, like our dear Andrea Ossa, brought the dream to life. To all the professionals who have passed through the Foundation, we give thanks, because we know that at some point they were part of this madness with their affection and commitment, but above all because they were an important part of the story of many people who approached timidly and found in you companionship and clarity.

The team at Fundación para la Confianza faces pain, abandonment, injustice and trauma every day, with stories very similar to the one Marjorie told us in her testimony. Many of our days begin with a call from a person who has spent days, weeks and months gathering the strength needed to ask for help. At the other end of the line, a person answers with gentleness and, at the same time, gives them a sense of security. That same call often turns into an appointment with one of the professionals from the Foundation’s legal or psychological area. That first call or contact —there can be more than fifty in a week— is the first step towards forming a bond between a survivor and a team that believes that with a warm welcome and clear guidance it is possible to help strengthen the inner resilience of people who have lived through abuse and mistreatment, helping hope to reappear and a path of reparation to come into view.

First contact and support, the first session with the team of the support area —professionals from psychology, law and social work— is the starting point of a journey of justice and inner restoration for many survivors. Everyone who seeks guidance at the Foundation has different paths and timescales of healing, which the team must respect with empathy and responsibility.

In this way, many of our days at the Foundation end with deep thanks for having been there, for having listened and trusted. Sometimes letters, flowers and chocolates even arrive. Nevertheless, there are days when we feel we could have done more, or it pains us to have arrived too late for some people.

The team working in the consulting rooms —both in person and online— is a team that understands that working with trauma means accompanying people’s most intimate accounts. To care for the processes of each survivor who has trusted us, the team must also be cared for. This is a constant challenge, made easier when commitment to the Foundation’s mission is present in every area, project, activity and meeting: we are building a world without abuse. Even so, we have to insist on internal self-care practices, ranging from asking a colleague a sincere “how are you?”, to giving the other person the welcoming space to work through their distress after receiving a heartfelt account, to encouraging moments of relaxation and laughter to restore to the soul the meaning of life after days of contact with another person’s wound. But working with trauma is not only pain; it is a space to believe again that healing is possible, to raise awareness that not all human beings are people who want to harm you. It is an experience for reconnecting.

After each session there is a reflective process —individual or in a group— to decide together on the most appropriate intervention for each person, depending on their history. This is where network-based work appears as another hallmark of the Foundation: only if we weave a network of professionals and institutions that beat with the same purpose and share the same technical criteria will we be able to offer an appropriate response to each survivor. Dozens of professionals, many of them trained in our diploma programmes, open the doors of their practices to continue along the path of justice and healing.

1. First contactA call that may have taken days, weeks or months. There can be more than fifty in a week.
2. First contact and supportA session with professionals from psychology, law and social work.
3. ReflectionAn individual or group process to decide on the most appropriate intervention for each person.
4. Network-based workDozens of professionals, many trained in the diploma programmes, continue along the path of justice and healing.

The team’s training has had a unique, sometimes curious, hallmark, led by José, a philosopher more focused on the questions, concerns and dreams of the people who want to work at the Foundation than on academic articles or rankings. In 2017, our current Director of Prevention and Education asked one of our directors a pointed question at a Foundation event in the Plaza de Armas. When the event ended, José Andrés went up to her and, in less than ten minutes of talking about her life, dreams and training, decided to propose that Verónica join the team from the following week.

For my part, I cannot disown my own story: I was drifting around Chile waiting for my visa to return to Ethiopia, where I worked in food security, and so as not to waste time while I waited, I approached the Foundation because I knew of its tireless work in its fight against abuse and, above all, I was curious about the cultural change it was aiming for. I offered what I had to hand: experience in applying for funding and a great deal of enthusiasm. I found a collective space, where José leads a dream that is not only his or the founders’, but belongs to a whole society that demands good treatment, especially of children. The Foundation ended up winning my heart and I decided to stay, because I understood that its mission is ambitious and fundamental, and that achieving it takes time, strategy, persistence and focus.

Personally, working with the drivers of this cultural change is a constant challenge. Their dreams motivate me, keep me alert and open all the time to new ideas, and sometimes they make me furious, at times with more reason than at others, but on many occasions I realise that this fit of anger arises when we want to stay comfortable and take refuge in the familiar. So it soon passes, because I understand, and we understand, that at the Foundation we are moving bridges connecting the dreams of others with our own, and that our nature is to be uncomfortable enough to want to change, for the better, the abuse that surrounds us.

The method of trust

By the Executive Team of Fundación para la Confianza

The fruit of ten years of work has shown itself not only in the people the Foundation has been able to help in different ways over time, but also in a great deal of learning, which has resulted in a way of working built on what the professional team experiences, shares and learns every day.

For this reason, in this chapter we want to set out four ways of working that we have built over time, and which today we are proud to recognise have been of service to hundreds of people who needed them.

We do not want all this effort to stop here. There is a lot of growing to do and much work still ahead in the fight against abuse, and so we invite you to be part of this great responsibility. To that end, we make this knowledge available, in the hope that it can help to keep planting seeds and to make the fight against abuse take root in different places in Chile and the world.

GAMU

The Mutual Support Groups, or GAMU, are group support settings, complementary to therapy, that have formed part of the services of the Comprehensive Support Area since 2013. They are aimed at people over 18 who share the experience of having been direct or indirect victims of child sexual abuse.

The aim of the GAMU is to provide a protected space where people who have been victims can share with peers, in order to help them give new meaning to the experience of sexual abuse. The aim is to recognise the complexity of the phenomenon, as well as the capacities and resources that survivors have been able to develop and that have enabled them to reach the present moment. Through this therapeutic strategy, the transition from a passive state to an active one, with control over one’s own life and surroundings, is encouraged.

The GAMU methodology consists of a total of twelve group meetings held weekly over a period of four months, in which art-based techniques are used, a resource that makes emotional expression easier. There are groups for men, for women, mixed groups and groups for adults who are significant to the victims, each made up of between seven and ten people. The meetings are presented as spaces for encounter, recognition and mutual support, placing at the centre language and critical reflection on the experience of sexual abuse, which makes it possible to take a certain distance in order to observe it, interpret it and see oneself in it as a victim and a survivor. Emphasis is placed on the strengths and skills of those who take part, fostering conversations about the competences they can use to face their situation.

• 12group meetings, one a week
• 4 monthsis how long each group lasts
• 7 to 10people per group: groups of men, of women, mixed, or of adults significant to the victims
• 18 yearsor older, with a therapeutic process under way

From this perspective, GAMU rests on a hermeneutic epistemological perspective, which understands language and makes transformation possible, since it not only allows reality to be brought back together and understood, but also allows new ways of interpreting situations to be built, giving them new meanings.

The work is done from the approach of lucid trust, which is located not in the relationship between two people but in the context that makes that relationship possible. That is why GAMU seeks to rebuild bonds from a new trust whose foundation contains the precepts of justice, crisis, critique, recognition and courage.

Another approach taken up in GAMU is the ethics of care, which proposes taking charge of affective responsibility, one’s own and that which is in dialogue within the network of relationships we weave with other people. Care is thus established as an ethical principle, which means that those who take part in the group care for others and let themselves be cared for, setting their own rules within the group from the outset, and contributing to building a space of protection they can turn to at any time, even once the sessions have ended.

The criteria for taking part are having been a direct or indirect victim of child sexual abuse, being over 18, having a therapeutic process under way (psychiatric, psychological or other) and the knowledge of the therapist who is carrying out the individual therapy.

The team is made up of a coordinator, who leads the process of selecting participants, supervises the work in the groups and promotes self-care activities, among other tasks. Each group is run by two or three facilitators, social science professionals with expertise in child sexual abuse, group work and complex trauma, who foster interaction among the people in a space of recognition, care and respect for the other person.

Psychological guidance

The guidance and support area is made up of a group of professionals from different fields who sustain multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work. In this way, professionals in psychology, law and social work intervene in a coordinated way to give a timely and specific response to each of the people who ask the Foundation for help.

The human rights approach, good treatment, the dignity of people and the emotional availability of the professionals frame the support given to those who come to the Foundation seeking help. Given that abuse in all its forms is unacceptable, the team offers emotional support, recognition, and proposals for overcoming and repairing the traumatic experiences lived through as a result of sexual abuse.

People who come to the Foundation for guidance receive specialised care free of charge, and are received by professionals who give a response or provide information tailored to their needs, whether legal or psychological; care may be given by two-person teams, followed by an interdisciplinary analysis of each case. In this sense, our service users can access a space of support, initial assessment and the building of possible alternatives to begin the process of overcoming and repairing their experiences.

Likewise, on the legal side, in specific cases and when this fits our protocols, our programme capacity and the relevant bodies in the network, our legal team provides direct legal representation, free of charge, to victims and their families.

The guidance and support area receives people over 18 who have suffered experiences of sexual abuse during their childhood, or fathers, mothers or responsible or significant adults who require this service and professional support in order to make decisions and take various actions aimed at restoring and improving their mental health.

In an atmosphere of care and respect, each person who is received has a confidential space where it is possible to speak in a protected way about their concerns regarding the experiences of abuse, which may have been disclosed to others before or may be disclosed for the first time to our professionals.

At a meeting arranged voluntarily and in person, by contacting us by telephone, by email or in person, each service user, after deciding together with the professional what seems right for them, and if necessary, requested or agreed, is given an assisted referral to the public or private networks the Foundation works with.

In the process of contact with the Foundation, the role of whoever schedules the guidance session is to obtain specific information about each person, in order to give the best response to the need each case presents, always safeguarding against and preventing secondary victimisation, within a framework of good treatment.

The guidance and support team has paid special attention to building a network of professionals who specialise in the issues that concern those who ask us for help, making it easier to access responsible, high-quality interventions so that people can take part in therapeutic and/or legal processes related to their specific needs.

In addition, assisted referrals are made as quickly as possible to specialised public networks that are free of charge, giving access to expert teams in different territories across the country.

Línea Libre

Línea Libre is a support channel for children and young people offering guidance and initial psychological support. We provide a remote service in which any child or young person in Chile can contact our team of psychologists.

The remote service is provided through three communication channels, offering a confidential, free and professional space in which children and young people are listened to and can find solutions to problems in the social, emotional or psychological spheres that affect their lives. The contact channels are the number 1515, which allows us to hold telephone conversations, and the “Línea Libre” app, in which we can chat with our contacts, through the form available on our website www.linealibre.cl.

The main objective of Línea Libre is to provide a kind of psychological guidance that upholds the vision and mission of Fundación para la Confianza, that is, to work for human rights, especially those of children and adolescents. From that approach, we strengthen the capacity of our contacts to take an active part in the most important areas of their lives.

It is essential that each Línea Libre session be a space of ethical intervention, respecting each person’s rhythms and processes. The spirit of Línea Libre is to validate the personal experience of each contact, making room for human pain and suffering in order to try to lessen it.

The intervention model is presented as a collaborative process in which each psychologist becomes a companion and, together with the person consulting, defines the objectives of the session. For this, there is an initial assessment carried out in order to identify and construct the problem together. In turn, the work is goal-oriented, especially towards the effective resolution of conflicts and/or difficulties, trying to strengthen the capacities of each child or young person.

Establishing an alliance with those who get in touch is crucial, so the bond becomes a stage that runs through the whole intervention process. The work is done so that each contact feels understood, knows who we are and what we can help them with. In this way, it is possible to design interventions appropriate to each person and situation, assessing protective and risk factors depending on the issues in each case.

In this respect, it is essential to have the support of a socio-legal team that accompanies decisions for reasons for contact that represent a serious risk factor. Such cases are situations in which a person’s physical and/or psychological integrity is in danger. It is therefore important to activate the action protocols, when necessary, in order to provide appropriate emotional support, seek strategies to stop the risk situation and position ourselves as an institution that guarantees the rights of children and adolescents.

For this reason, the intervention model is presented as a process that adapts to the unique relationship each professional establishes in each session, and that seeks to have a positive impact on those who contact Línea Libre. The line’s internal statistics show that there has been a sustained increase in sessions since it opened, reaching more than 10,000 during 2020, and that reasons for contact related to mental health are the most prevalent among contacts.

• 10,000+ Línea Libre sessions during 2020; reasons for contact related to mental health are the most frequent.
• 3 channels the number 1515, the Línea Libre app and the website form.

Prevention and education

Prevention and Education is the Foundation’s area responsible for training, informing and educating everyone interested in issues of the protection and care of children and adolescents.

It is an area whose main value is respect for and recognition of the dignity of all people; that is why each programme and project it carries out is tailored to the needs of each community or human group. The work is therefore organised around a logic of service in which the professional team is permanently available to accompany each person, each team and each community, with a clear commitment to the reality of each being and each space.

A particular and special element of the area is support and guidance in complex cases. Given the Foundation’s experience and the team’s professional training, all training activities are complemented by spaces for the technical analysis of cases, which foster an interdisciplinary and systemic view of cases of child maltreatment and sexual abuse.

In the area, we believe that coordinated, professional and humane work with a human rights approach is the way to build a world without abuse.

Its activities include:

• Free awareness-raising talks: for low-income communities that need to begin a training process.

• Specialised design: creation of courses and training projects that are specific and tailored to the community’s social, territorial and learning needs.

• Diploma programmes: specialised training programme on children’s issues.

• Alianzas para la Confianza (Alliances for Trust): a specific programme supporting schools to Welcome, Support and Refer (Acoger, Contener y Derivar, ACODE) in a timely way in cases of child maltreatment and sexual abuse.

The Alliances, specifically, respond to the need not only to accompany victims, but to prevent; and prevention is only possible through coordinated work among actors whose main value and working principle is the best interests of the child, together with a common understanding of the phenomenon and, finally, established shared practices.

Child sexual abuse, in most cases, happens within family contexts. That is why the natural allies for detecting and intervening in a timely and protective way are schools, which are legally and ethically mandated to respect, promote and defend the rights of children and adolescents because of their role as co-responsible guarantors.

As a foundation, we welcome those who need support, and that includes schools. In general, these schools contact the Foundation to receive guidance on complex cases or situations that require specialised intervention, and it is at these moments that the “Alianzas para la Confianza” project is presented to them, inviting them to consider becoming part of it.

The Alliances are based on a logic of progressive and coordinated work consisting of four phases, each with specific objectives aimed at strengthening the protective context of the school. These stages are:

• Assessment: a situational analysis of the whole context of the school, its infrastructure, manuals, protocols and the whole community as a whole, in relation to the degree of knowledge, awareness and skills of the different actors to prevent and react in a timely way to cases of child maltreatment and sexual abuse.

• Training: training activities are carried out for the whole school, in which we make sure the whole community receives information that raises sensitivity and awareness about sexual abuse. Knowledge and tools that foster ethical and respectful interventions are also passed on.

• Improvement: actions to accompany and optimise physical spaces, manuals, protocols, processes and practices. This process is carried out through personalised follow-up and consultancy for the school.

• Validation: this is the final stage of the project, in which the whole experience is reviewed and the processes the school will develop to guarantee training for the community and the ongoing dissemination of protocols are formally established. Finally, the “seal of trust” (sello para la confianza) is awarded, validating that the school has met the minimum standards to constitute itself as a protective context.

The Alliances are much more than a training project. They are the heart and the drive for building a community full of protective third parties, that is, an adult community that commits itself to children and their care, and that takes responsibility for the care of all children and adolescents.

This programme, which is also inclusive in terms of territory, has gone from Arica to Punta Arenas, and the Foundation’s Alliances area has supported people even from other countries. To date, the implementing team is made up of four professionals from different disciplines, always working within the paradigm of lucid trust and the rights-based approach.

To trust is to dream of another 10 years

By José Andrés Murillo, Executive Director, Fundación para la Confianza

At the end of 2010, when Fundación para la Confianza was beginning to take shape, it was impossible to imagine what it would become 10 years later. We dreamed of a world without abuse, and that dream is still alive. Abuse is still so normalised in so many places, and for so many people, that for this reason the first battle is against blindness. Not only do we not see; we do not see that we do not see. The double blindness installed in the paradigm of our culture and its institutions has been the enemy. But how do you fight blindness?

It is no use accusing those who do not see of being blind, not even those who do not want to see or do not know they do not see. If we may stretch the metaphor, what we have done is switch on a light to show the blindness, our own too in many things. By naming and showing, voice and light have begun to transform reality. Before 2010 the very word abuse was rarely used.

Today the streets are painted with that moving “no more abuse”, which captures the feeling of generations of silenced victims. Silenced, not silent. Silenced by other people, by pain, trauma, tradition, fear, shame. Today the challenge will be to turn indignation into action, action for justice and for rebuilding social trust. Because in total distrust a society dissolves, fragments, goes mad. The lucid trust we put forward must serve to create spaces for a different social fabric, grounded in justice and commitment to human rights. That is what we are aiming for as a Foundation.

Where will Fundación para la Confianza be in ten years’ time? It is likely that many battles will still be ongoing, and that we will be better prepared to fight them. It is likely that personal wounds will be healing, and that this will give us more strength to accompany others in rebuilding themselves, integrating their life story and loving life again. We want to become a centre for specialised and comprehensive care in sexual violence. Accompanying people in therapeutic processes integrated with mutual support groups and legal representation: that is a dream we may perhaps achieve little by little.

The streets of our city this year bleed with “no more abuse”. We want them, in time, to say, along with obtaining justice, “we want to heal the wounds”. Our country has been complicit in abuse by silencing victims and denying them comprehensive and specialised therapeutic treatment. We want to be part of the solution. To prevent, as we do in school communities. To detect, as we do with specialised training in our diploma programmes and talks. To intervene in a timely and appropriate way, as we do in the legal representation we manage to take on and in which we accompany victims comprehensively.

1. PreventIn school communities
2. DetectWith specialised training in diploma programmes and talks
3. InterveneIn a timely and appropriate way, with legal representation and comprehensive support

In recent years we have managed to expand the mental health care networks of Fundación para la Confianza thanks to a remote system, reaching every corner of our country. Since 2019 every child and adolescent has had access to psychological crisis guidance that is free, immediate and specialised, thanks to our Foundation’s Línea Libre project. Our commitment is to strengthen this channel of care; we will continue to be there, especially for those who do not have the resources to access in-person mental health care.

This is the challenge. That people may find at Fundación para la Confianza a space of healing, of specialised support, of schooling, of training. A space that regenerates wounded trust, that regenerates the wounds. We hope that in 2030 we will be talking about new ways of healing and not only about new ways of reporting. Time, our work and our commitment will tell.

We hope that in 2030 we will be talking about new ways of healing and not only about new ways of reporting.

The road has been a constant challenge. As a team and a board we are proud to have travelled it. We look back today and realise that we were opening it up as we went; it did not exist. Now we look to the future and know that we will have to keep opening up the road. Commitment, innovation, passion and also joy in everyday work. Accompanying those who have suffered is often a source of sadness for those of us who are there. But the underlying melody is one of serenity and meaning. We have experienced the meaning a life takes on when it is shared in empathy. And I am sure that this search for meaning will go on creating and opening up the road in the years to come.