De la incapacitación legal a la capacidad jurídica en igualdad

From the experience in Italy about the legal figure 'Administratore di Sostengo', precursor of what is pursued with the new law in Spain, and from the detection of needs in both countries, we want...

From the experience in Italy about the legal figure 'Administratore di Sostengo', precursor of what is pursued with the new law in Spain, and from the detection of needs in both countries, we wanted to define the curriculum (competences) of the person who is going to support the legal capacity of autistic people. Likewise, through the research of the needs, fears, worries of autistic people, their families and professionals, about what is 'becoming an adult', we wanted to identify those competences. With this identification of the necessary competences, we wanted to identify a new professional profile associating professional competences. Moreover, we hope that this could lead to a new training curriculum to be applied in all European countries where the transposition of article 12 of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is taking place, adapted to the special needs of autistic people.

In order to achieve the final result of the project, the curriculum, we have been developing different activities to reach the final product. The activities developed have been: Firstly, a search for good practices (10 in total) related to the legal capacity of people with disabilities. In parallel, we started a research on the Italian figure 'Administratore di Sostengo', an Italian figure that we believed could have to do with that specialist in the support to the legal capacity of autistic people. Three focus groups were also developed, both in Italy and in Spain, in each of the countries: one with relatives of autistic people and another one with support professionals, whose objective was to know which are the characteristics, potential and limits of the new approach to the legal capacity and the lack or training needs of social and legal operators about all this. Another was also carried out with autistic adults to find out about their difficulties in this area, proposals on how this support should be provided, etc. With all this, the final product has been developed: the curriculum of the specialist in the support to the legal capacity of autistic people.

The activities carried out throughout the project have produced reports, registers, etc. that can be of use to organisations in the world of disability, to people with disabilities and their families and to anyone interested. Thus, a report of good practices has been produced, which includes a total of 10 good practices developed at European level, on the legal capacity of people with disabilities. A report on the 'Administratore di Sostengo' is also available, which analyses this Italian figure and compares it with the existing support figures in Spain. Another of the results, has been the report of the focal groups, in which relatives, professionals and autistic people themselves, show their fears, worries and vulnerabilities facing their adult stage and what it means. And finally, the curriculum for the person specialised in supporting the legal capacity of autistic people. The curriculum gathers a series of operative areas in which the specialist person will be trained, with some associated topics and some competence modules and the content of each one of the operative areas. Each one of these areas has a quantified number of training hours.