Throughout the 2021/2022 school year, the City Council of Vila Nova de Famalicão has developed a new smart inclusion programme, focused on proximity social responses to at-risk communities in the municipality.
The Accompanying + programme brings together as partners the City Council - through the Social Action and Education Departments -, PASEC - Socio-Educational and Cultural Action Platform, the Camilo Castelo Branco School Grouping, the D. Sancho I School Grouping, the Children and Young People's Protection Commission, the Social Action Office of the Lameiras Residents' Association and the Eurobairro Project of the Choices Program, supported by the High Commission for Migrations.
The project makes an integrated and innovative approach in the territory of Vale do Ave, with a multidisciplinary team and continuous presence in the field. The intervention of teams was made in the socio-educational area and in response to social emergency situations, with a parental education programme, which provides integrated and personalised training responses, family by family, in their own territory, a skills training programme that takes place throughout the year (including school holidays) involving 271 children and young people, and an articulated programme of study support and promotion of educational success, with a team of Peer Mentors and Tutors acting in the five communities of the project.
This work resulted in a response to a gap, related to the need to bring together all the partners who respond to the most disadvantaged communities in Famalicão, and a more real diagnosis of the situation, which allows a more robust and objective response to situations of exclusion that went unnoticed.
In this school year, Accompanying + involved around 271 children and young people, as well as more than 10 families from the Bétulas, Lameiras, Valdossos, Cal and Meães Social Housing Complexes.