Portal web del Ayuntamiento de Madrid

DESCRIPTION

The Parental Intervention Centre (CIP) is an interdisciplinary and specialised psychosocial intervention centre that works with families following the break-up of their family homes in situations where a medium or high level of conflict between the parents makes it extremely difficult for them to perform their parental duties.

The progressive increase in contentious divorces, the judicialization of family relations, conflict between parents, the tendency of these difficulties to become chronic and other negative situations associated with such circumstances have a very detrimental effect on the appropriate development of minor children. In view of this, Madrid City Council launched the CIP to intervene with these families, taking into account their situations and needs and, first and foremost, the best interests of the children and teenagers affected by the situation.

The CIP has an interdisciplinary team of professionals (psychologists, social workers, parental coordinators, lawyers, administrative assistants) who are experts on family conflict and intervention with extensive experience and specialised training.

 The CIP provides four specific services, which are described below.

Its hours of operation are 10am to 8pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 7:30pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

OBJECTIVES

The CIP specialises in providing assistance in contentious divorces that make it hard for parents to perform their parental roles. It serves all residents of the city of Madrid’s 21 districts and has the following objectives:

• Promote skills that enable parents to adequately perform their parental roles and share co-responsibility
•  Provide counselling and supervise the way parents interact and cooperate and its effects on their children, and foster cooperation and joint decision-making by parents for the good of their minor children
• Manage family conflicts appropriately
•  Foster suitable compliance with judicial requirements pertaining to family relationships (visitations, contact, exercise of parental authority, etc.) 
•  Encourage fulfilment of the fundamental right of minors to maintain a relationship with their family members following the break-up of the family home
•  Counsel parents and their children to enable them to recognise potentially dysfunctional and/or aggressive behaviour with a view to detecting and controlling such behaviour and encouraging more suitable forms of emotional conflict resolution
•  Support parents and other family members to enable them to maintain, in a normalised manner, relationships with minors with whom they aren’t cohabiting, providing them with communication and behaviour guidelines which will be the basis of the cohabitational relationship

SERVICES

The centre provides four services, each of which has its own access route:

•  Parenting Coordination Service (SCP): The Parenting Coordinator is an agent who handles high-conflict cases and is empowered by the relevant court. Duties include facilitating agreements and making joint decisions with parents, suggesting guidelines for specific actions and, when a consensus can't be reached, helping to resolve situations in the best interests of the minor(s) in question based on the terms of the relevant judicial sentence. The Parenting Coordinator designs and formalises a Parenting Plan for the parents and oversees its implementation, in addition to keeping the court informed of the process that the family is following. Access to this service is only by referral from a pre-registered Court of First Instance in Madrid.
•  Family Meeting Point Service (SPEF): A venue intended to offer a safe, suitable, professional, neutral space that facilitates meetings and supports children's right to interact with their parents and other family members with visitation rights.  This service is only available upon referral from the legal system or minor protection services.
•  Specialised Psychosocial Counselling Service: This service provides specialised psychosocial family intervention in situations involving the break-up of a couple's relationship and a medium level of conflict, supporting parents who display difficulties with adequately performing their parental roles due to break-up of the family home and the end of their relationship. Access to the service is by referral from courts, schools and educational centres, paediatricians, and other intervention services that deal with minors and families. It can also be accessed directly upon request by the parties in question. 
•  Group Intervention Service for Prevention, Education and Practise of Positive Parenting for Broken Families (SIG). This service aims to support families with broken homes by educating them to help them understand the processes they are going through and to continue to perform their parental duties in the best possible way, meeting their own needs and the specific needs of their children which have resulted from the break-up.

DURATION

The centre opened in September 2018. It is managed indirectly under a contract awarded by public tender and its duration is indefinite.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Website CIP >>

dgfiej@madrid.es