Development and Early Care

Early care is the set of actions aimed at providing children, in the early stages of their development, with the global environmental stimuli appropriate to their age and which will favour their physical, sensory, intellectual and affective evolution.

The aim is not to endow children with multiple skills but to ensure that, with the skills they possess, they can interrelate with their environment in the most effective and rewarding way for them and for those around them.

The CDIAP Sant Joan de Déu is a Child Development and Early Care Centre which attends to the needs of early care of children from 0 to 6 years of age in the municipalities of Esplugues, Sant Joan Despí and Sant Just Desvern. It is part of the Public Network of Child Development and Early Care Centres of the Directorate General for Social Protection of the Departament de Drets Socials (Department of Social Rights) of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia), under the agreement system.

It is a prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment service aimed at children, and their families, who present developmental disorders, are at risk of suffering them due to their background or present difficulties in their upbringing.

The main objective of early care is to provide children with everything that, from the preventive and care point of view, can enhance their capacity for development and well-being, and enable them to integrate as fully as possible into the family, school and social environment, as well as foster their autonomy.

The CDIAP Sant Joan de Déu has a team of experts in child development (physiotherapy, speech therapy, neuropediatrics, psychology, psychomotor skills and social work).

It is a free public service

Functions of the CDIAP

• Global assessment of the problems of the child and their family.
• Information, guidance, support and counselling for the family.
• Therapeutic care for children and monitoring of their evolution.
• Coordination with professionals in the educational, social and health fields of the children cared for at the centre.
• Guidance and support for early childhood education schools.
• Collaboration in prevention and detection programmes.
• Research, teaching and training.

Recipients and access

• Children with or at risk of developmental disorders, from conception until the maximum age of six.
• The services will be as last as each child needs or until the care needs can be covered by other general services (educational, health or social).
• If the demand exceeds the care capacity agreed with the Administration, priority will be given to actions for children under three years of age and children with severe impairment, adhering to the clinical criteria of the CDIAP professionals.

Access to the centre

• The family can access it directly, on their own initiative or by referral from the educational, social or health settings, as long as the child’s age is within the early-care range and live in the care area (Esplugues de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí and Sant Just Desvern).