Presentation

In 1972, the Gipuzkoa Association for People with Learning Disabilities and Saint Michael’s Board of the Municipal Savings Bank (Caja de Ahorros Municipal) of San Sebastián, published “El problema de la deficiencia mental en Guipúzcoa” (“The problem of learning disability in Gipuzkoa) carried out by the sociologic research group Gaur. The report, in whose production the sociologist Ramón Saizarbitoria played a fundamental role, laid down the main issues regarding learning disability. It also defined and specified the range of services needed to deal with this matter, in accordance with the spirit of the philosophies circulating in other European countries. Furthermore, the production of that work contributed to confirming the existence of a huge deficit in the much needed flow of scientific and technical information regarding this area.

Such shortfall was the greatest worry of one of the main agents in the promotion of this report, José I. Eguía Careaga, who, with just the assistance of his editorial group, decided to set up an international information service specialising in learning disability issues. This service, working very closely with the support groups that emerged at that time, aimed to answer the need of all those who worked in this field for access to the increasing number of documents and information. The starting point was learning disability issues but, once it was obvious that from a social perspective these could not be treated separately, the service evolved to encompass disability in a comprehensive way and finally social services in general.

Since then, the SIIS has developed to become now a fundamental reference for research and documentation in the domain of Social Services. The main aim of the centre, incorporated into the Eguía Careaga Foundation since 1978, is to contribute to the improvement of social wellbeing policies, organization of Social Services and practice of all the professionals in sectors involved in Social Care. In order to achieve that the SIIS has been working closely for many years with the Housing, Social Care and Justice, and Work and Social Security (Spanish state health system) Departments of the Basque Government and also with the Local Assemblies, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. The centre also works with the Royal Trust for Disability, at Spanish level, running the Spanish Documentation Centre for Disability (CEDD). From time to time, the SIIS also assists other institutions, like Emakunde (Basque Women Institute) or Ararteko (Basque Ombudsman).

The SIIS staff, who work at sites in Donostia (San Sebastián) or Madrid, comprise of around twenty professionals with specializations in documentation, sociology, law, demography, journalism, anthropology, economics and social work. In accordance with their international vocation, the SIIS professionals speak (between them) Euskara (Basque) and Castilian (Spanish), as well as other languages including French, English, German, Swedish and Danish.

The SIIS, as a documentation centre, offers all interested persons, particularly, institutions, professionals and researchers, a document collection service specialising in social policy and social services. They compile and catalogue documents produced in these areas of activity at regional, national and international level. The SIIS focuses on the following topics:

• People with disabilities
• Drug dependency
• Older people
• Social Exclusion
• Children and Young People
• Family
• Gender
• Social Policy and Social Services

As a research centre, the SIIS undertakes research in different spheres:

• Assessment of services, through the development and adaptation of successful methodologies implemented in other countries
• Manuals of good practice and implementation of quality programmes.
• Plans and intervention strategies
• Needs assessments and services map
• Epidemiologic studies
• Comparative international studies
• Regulatory technical drafts

In parallel and further to their work in two main areas, documentation and research, the SIIS undertakes other tasks, like the production of specialist periodical publications and thematic document bulletins, the production of web pages or applied IT, like directories or tools for the planning and making of expenditure estimates for Social Services.

During these 35 years, since that first report originating the birth of SIIS was published, documentation centres, Social Services and society as a whole have experienced significant transformations. The SIIS has kept adjusting to all these changes, both through the implementation of the new technologies in the document-related tasks (computerised processing of the database, digitalization of our collection, access to the Internet) and through the implementation of innovative methodologies in social research. The SIIS staff have also striven to continually meet the needs of their clients, whether they are public institutions, private entities or individuals, with their ongoing commitment to improve the systems in place for selection, retrieval and circulation of documents.

The SIIS has contributed over these years to the enrichment of professional views and practices relating to social policies by introducing and disseminating information about issues like: employability and mainstream education for people with disabilities; the help needed by the carers themselves; the need for personalised services or the search for quality in service delivery, always with the concept of normalising community based Social Services; all issues that now seem obvious, but at some point had to be explained, discussed and agreed on. The centre has done its part with a particular style; rigorous, avoiding extreme views and respecting all the different options that, either from the technological or political aspects, have been adopted in the planning and management of Social Services.

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