At the beginning of the year, psychologists and psychologists working in the Support for Women and Family Support Service of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia were informed that three of the four posts of psychologists who were part of the service were abolished and placed in other services. So, only a psychologist is abandoned. Psychologists announce that this change will have serious consequences.

In 1987, the Service for the Protection of Women and Support of Families was established, which serves women victims of male violence and their children. Between 2001 and 2022, two social workers and four social intervention psychologists were part of the service. Over the years, the figure is equal.

Social workers and psychologists valued women “by couples”. “It was not only an assessment to get to know the woman and agree on the type of help, but it started to relate to her and help her to become aware of the situation,” one of them says. Four workers talk to Pikara Magazine, but they prefer not to say their names. From now on, the assessment will be carried out exclusively by social workers, and psychologists have announced that this will have serious consequences. They stress the need for “comprehensive” care and assessment.

Within the Department of Employment, Social Cohesion and Equality, the Service for Women and Family Support is part of the Department for Social Inclusion. Oscar Seco is the director of this section. “We published the new care model for victims of male violence in 2021, it’s nothing new,” he said. The proposal includes a new evaluation tool for women, launched in 2022. “We are now adapting the organization of the service,” he adds.

Psychologists stress their concern for women suffering from male violence, rather than their jobs. Precisely, although the new model dates back to 2021, the changes are earlier: “Since the PSE-EE arrived in this department in 2015, the technical experience and training of the staff of this service has not been taken into account,” said the interviewees.

No direct access

The reorganization of psychologists is not the only complaint of workers. “One of the most serious changes that have taken place since 2015 has been the progressive decline in direct access.” They explain that before, victims could call the service directly. They were valued and able to access specialized interdisciplinary resources, without going through basic social services, avoiding “revictimization”.

There are currently three possibilities for access to the specialised service of the Deputy. On the one hand, there's direct access. Women can have direct access to the psychological care service, socio-legal care service, child and parental intervention service, child victim service and care centre for victims of sexual violence in crisis situations. The emergency procedure is the second way to access the service and the ordinary the third.

Those who enter the ordinary procedure must first go through basic social services. They then refer them to the Council to assess the lack of protection. This process prolongs routes by creating waiting lists that can last months. Access to residential resources goes through, among others, social services. Psychologists believe that this is not at all appropriate for victims: “The laws of care for victims say that urgent, immediate and comprehensive care must be taken, and revictimization must be avoided, a woman does not have to tell her story a thousand times,” the workers stress.

Moreover, remember that basic social services are “saturated” and that getting a date is “difficult”: “When you are a victim it is very difficult to ask for help. If you have to make an appointment with the basic social services and wait three months, it will be late. At that time it is possible to relate to the aggressor again and stop helping,” they explain.

Many women out of service

The new tool launched in 2022 is only available to the Diputación de Bizkaia. Instrument not published in the Official Journal. A test was carried out with 11 municipalities two years ago.

The tool divides the questionnaire into 17 dimensions and analyzes different areas of violence. According to this, they measure women's defenselessness. According to Seco, the cases of “risk of helplessness” are referred to the basic social services, because the “law so” says it. According to the psychologists interviewed, the Deputation attends cases of severe disprotection.

According to data from Emakunde of 2022, the immediate reception service of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia served 170 women and 115 children. These figures were ratified last November by Mrs Teresa Laespada and shared the data of the Observatory on Gender Violence in Bizkaia at the General Meetings. The Diputación “offers a specialized service in the psychological care of family intervention in situations of abuse and sexual assault”, according to Laespada. Laespada served 1,717 people in 2022, mostly “victims of some kind of violence that the program addresses.” In the face of the numbers, four psychologists ask, “Where are the data of the women who do not attend?”

According to the psychologists interviewed, this tool is “an adaptation of the tool to measure social exclusion”, used to “screen” and “for concrete political interests”. In fact, the tool for measuring the lack of protection determines that the Member will only care for women who are victims of ill-treatment if, after their passage, there is a situation of serious lack of protection. “In recent years the demand has grown exponentially and the system cannot take care of it, so psychologists have created this tool for case screening and sending it to one or another organization.”

So, it leaves many women out of attention. For example, those without housing difficulties, those without financial difficulties, those with personal autonomy or family or social support. “The tool says they don’t have a serious lack of protection.” They don't have access to specialized services by going back to social services.

And not only that. The tool does not take into account that leaving violence is a process. “The tool measures a concrete moment, often the moment of greatest crisis of women,” the interviewees stress. Therefore, the instrument does not measure all the damage caused by violence.

Unique psychologist

“Society wants women to be quiet and say yes to everything,” psychologists have criticized. They therefore believe that they have been transferred. In addition, the management argues that they are not “clinical” psychologists and that they cannot make specific assessments. “It is true that we are not clinical psychologists, we have been working in the psychosocial field for years, making assessments and supporting to respond to the needs of women,” they add.

According to Seco, nine social workers want to be cared for. As they had four and the Public Service is going to put a budget to have two others, so far they have decided to move three psychologists. Psychologists have emphasized that “anyone who understands male violence knows that it acts directly on the first person: their identity and emotions, among other things, so they cannot remove psychologists”.

The work of the social worker and the psychologist is “complementary” to analyze the needs of women. “Interdisciplinarity is included in all articles of all laws,” the workers explain. In this sense, psychologists are clear about why they have been moved: “Because we know too much, because we have questioned the new model and we have another way of acting”.

In addition to psychologists, the rest of the staff have the same opinion. In fact, 150 social workers and psychologists have sent a signed letter to the Deputy General of Bizkaia. They have made it clear that they do not agree with the decision to abandon three psychologists: “It is a great loss both in the professional field and in the fight against male violence”. In addition to the letter, on 9 February a concentration was held in favor of “coordination” in all resources and services.

“Purple bleaching”

Aware of the gravity, EH Bildu tabled a motion at the Bizkaia General Meetings a month ago, after questioning in February. Congressman of the Abertzale coalition, Bea Ilardia, explained that the equality issues they were seeing “long ago” were being taken “from the perspective of inclusion.”

In the General Boards, Ilardia recalled that the “gateway to all resources” has always been “correct”. Thus, the women found “reparation” from the moment they explained their situation, “because they were attended by professionals specialized in the subject, making them feel comfortable”. But the current situation is different. “Her idea is to direct all battered women to basic social services.” In this way, they will reduce demand: “Only half of women will go to social services, on the one hand because of the shame of small peoples and on the other because of the extension of the journey”. Instead of shortening the tours, Ilardi explains that they have conducted screening and established endless bureaucratic processes. It therefore says that they reduce demand in order to be able to say that they respond to existing demand.

In this situation, Ilardi denounced the “purple bleaching” of those who run the department. And that is what psychologists have confirmed: “Political parties have acquired the feminist discourse, but in practice it is a discourse without content.”

Psychologists have made it clear that “they are not aware of the gravity of the situation, because they do not know or have information about the reality of women suffering from male violence”. And they point out that the people who lead these kinds of departments should have a “gender perspective” and knowledge of male violence.