On 5 October 2022, representatives of the Council of Europe-European Union (DG REFORM) joint project “Strengthening child-friendly justice through effective co-operation and coordination among different Barnahus-type services in the regions of Spain” met in Madrid with the Spanish authorities to discuss how the Council of Europe can support the implementation of the Barnahus model in three potential pilot regions of Spain, as foreseen in the framework of the project. Representatives of the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Interior, and the Ministry of Justice attended the meeting. The project team also met with representatives of the Office of the Spanish Ombudsperson to inform them about the project and to explore synergies.

On 6 October 2022, the Council of Europe delegation, accompanied by representatives of the Spanish Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, travelled to Tarragona to visit the premises of the first Barnahus unit in Spain. A technical meeting with the staff of the Tarragona Barnahus was organised to learn about the challenges faced in setting up the interagency model in the Catalan region and to share their recently established good practices with the view to possibly replicate them in other regions. The meeting was productive and revealed a number of possibilities for cooperation within the project in the future.

The pilot Barnahus project in Tarragona has been led by the Catalan Department of Social Affairs and became operational in March 2020. Under Next Generation EU Funds, the Barnahus services will move to a new child-friendly location that is currently under construction and is planned to be finalised by early 2023. Since its opening, the Barnahus in Tarragona has taken on 482 cases of child sexual abuse, which constitutes an increase of 135,9% compared to the cases handled in 2020. The goal of the Catalan government is to open a total of 13 Barnahus units in the Catalan region.

The discussions held during both the meeting with national authorities and the visit to Tarragona will feed into the drafting of the project work plan and the inception report. The project’s kick-off meeting will take place on 26 October and will be hosted by the Spanish Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030.