Support Service for Job Placement Pathways(Alicante)

On 30 July 2021 Fundación Salud y Comunidad (FSC) signed a contract with Alicante City Council to manage once again the Support Service for Job Placement Pathways (SAIIL), which it had previously managed (2007-2017).

This service assists people with difficulties in accessing employment and training who are referred by the municipal Primary Care Social Services.

Its purpose, which has a strong social value, is to facilitate access to employment for people in situations of social exclusion who have objective difficulties in entering the labour market linked to low levels of education and training and little or no previous work experience. It is a comprehensive service with an interdisciplinary technical team made up of four professionals (a psychologist, a social educator, a teacher and a social integration technician).

To this end, the Objectives on which the entire intervention is structured are: facilitating processes of personal autonomy; increasing the employability of the people assisted; and developing channels of collaboration and intermediation with public and private organisations working in the field of employment and training.

Although there is a certain positive trend in job creation, a service such as SAIIL is needed, providing support in building job placement pathways from such fundamental perspectives as social inclusion, gender, equal opportunities, normalisation and integration, networking, etc., especially with people who are experiencing situations of vulnerability.

Social exclusion involves a loss of autonomy in obtaining the resources needed to meet a person’s basic needs. It is a breakdown of social, community and individual ties with the System. It leads to second-class citizenship; it breaks any social, community and individual bond; it gives rise to new underclasses; it entails less institutional compensation; it involves the accumulation of social disadvantages; it causes social segmentation and weakens the role of the family; it generates violence, social tension and social conflict; it increases the risk of social fracture and inequality, and reduces social sensitivity; it produces unstable, precarious and segmented employment; technological over-development as opposed to social underdevelopment, and it leads to de-familialisation (the family network becomes blurred when social protection mechanisms appear); it causes a crisis of social ties and makes social networks scarcer and poorer.

For this reason, a specialised service, the SAIIL, is essential within the machinery of local government, working towards the social and labour inclusion of vulnerable people through a threefold approach: advice and training in Comprehensive Inclusion Pathways, intermediation with employers, and coordination with other public and private organisations working in the field of training and employment in the municipality.