ALC accompanies the co-creation session of Getxo Zurekin: articulating the Compassionate Community
The developmental evaluation process requires collective interpretation sessions and community co-creation to consolidate processes such as the Compassionate Community of Getxo Zurekin. To this end, on 25 April, Agirre Lehendakaria Center (ALC) accompanied a session in which the team presented the main learnings from the developmental evaluation process, in order to understand the most significant changes in the community and work together on the sustainability of Getxo Zurekin, through the articulation of existing agents and initiatives.
Getxo Zurekin is established as a Social Innovation Platform in the field of Compassionate Communities. This initiative was promoted by Doble Sonrisa Foundation, with the aim of conveying to the community the importance of care in end-of-life situations, palliative care, death, bereavement and unwanted loneliness. For this reason, Getxo Zurekin is conceived as a social awareness, training and research programme. Without replacing the already existing palliative services and health and social care system, the project has been promoting a new social movement with people from the community since 2017, building a comprehensive system of care through community networks in the municipality of Getxo (Biscay, Basque Country).
On April 25th, the last session of collective interpretation and co-creation took place in Las Arenas (Getxo). Around 30 agents with diverse profiles participated in the session: people involved in the last iteration of in-depth listening carried out between 2023 and 2024, representatives of the Getxo City Council, local associations, Community Connectors from Getxo Zurekin or community nurses of Osakidetza, among them.
Getxo Zurekin has worked through ALC’s social innovation approach: (1) mapping of existing resources in the ecosystem (initiatives, agents); (2) in-depth listening to that ecosystem, (3) collective interpretation of the information generated, (4) co-creation and co-design of new multi-level solutions that connect directly with existing projects; and (5) prototyping and scaling of an experimentation portfolio.
ALC has been accompanying this process since 2017 and, during this time, a comprehensive care system has been consolidated through the community complementarity of the existing social and health system. The sense of belonging to the community, as well as the training of the people involved in the process, has facilitated community action for the construction of a portfolio of initiatives; such as the Death Café, “Café en compañía” (the Coffee in company), mutual support groups in grief, individualized accompaniments for people with support needs or the community formalization of the Advance Directives Document. It has been possible to bind together the community, not only generating a network of community support through the generation of natural links between the participants, but also involving other agents that make up the Compassionate Community, such as the Getxo Bihozbera community association, social and health personnel or third sector associations.
The expansion of the Compassionate Community requires an articulation of its agents and initiatives, understanding how they coordinate and complement each other. The session was therefore oriented in this direction, in order to understand and think collectively about the future of this Compassionate Community.
The collective interpretation session
I. Narratives and most significant changes
After the presentations of the participants and the objectives of the day's dynamic, the session began with the introduction of the new ethnographic patterns or profies. A collective interpretation of these was developed, integrating the most significant changes of the process so far, with the aim of contrasting perceptions with the attendees.
The identification of these ethnographic patterns served to deepen what the figures who take part in this community network consist of:
The lokarria figure (“bond” or “tie” in basque) was co-created in 2018. It is a professionalized role with a community focus that coordinates, facilitates and promotes initiatives that occur within the community network of Getxo Zurekin. It connects the community with public and private actors in the care environment, as well as these agents among them. The coordinated agents seek to create initiatives, sometimes forming networks (as is the case with the public-private network of the Compassionate Communities). It also has an important role in the in-depth listening to the perceptions of the different agents, being decisive in the success of the process, focusing on the needs, challenges and opportunities for the change of the narratives that operate in the community.
Community connectors, on the other hand, have training and are born from the figure of volunteering. It is a profile that facilitates spaces and connects with the community in the different initiatives. The figure of lokarria and comunity connectors make up the Getxo Zurekin tractor group. Recently, the community connectors have formed the community association Getxo Bihozbera, which aims to host some of the initiatives of Getxo Zurekin, based on community self-organization; as is the case of Getxo ZUrt! on the prevention, approach and postvention of suicide.
Community weavers are people who feel concern for other people in the community, and they play an active role within it. These are figures that connect people with public and community services. To this end, they have training on the existence of public and third sector resources, as well as training in emotional skills.
Finally, users are other people in the community who participate in these initiatives.
The figures are interconnected in such a way that a comprehensive care system is generated, creating a channel of public-community connection, complementing each other and bringing the various resources closer to the community.
II. Contrast of the experimentation Portfolio
To work on the experimentation portfolio, a visualization was contrasted to show the interconnections and roles of the agents in the different initiatives of the Social Innovation Platform of the Compassionate Community of Getxo. The participants highlighted the change in the role of lokarria, from the initial dynamization of the initiatives to the current coordination, as well as the assumption of responsibilities of the community connectors in the development of the initiatives. They also emphasized the need to understand the Compassionate Community of Getxo as a whole, including not only the Getxo Zurekin process, but other initiatives such as the Getxo Bihozbera community association as a central actor.
Conclusions of the session
During the course of the session, various topics were addressed. They highlighted the evolution of community roles, the composition and articulation of the Compassionate Community of Getxo or the subsidiarity of care.
On the one hand, there is an evolution in the roles assumed by the figures. While the figure of lokarria started as a connector, coordinator and dynamizer of spaces through the implementation of the social innovation approach of developmental evalution, it currently appears as an agent that is orbiting in all initiatives (articulates, coordinates and connects), giving way to community connectors (volunteers) as the main figures in the dynamization/support of initiatives.
Together with the community weavers and the rest of the agents involved, they make up the Compassionate Community, with a feeling of belonging to it. A clear example is the interconnection between Getxo Zurekin and Getxo Bihozbera. Although Getxo Bihozbera is a community association, Getxo Zurekin and Getxo Bihozbera are understood as two parts of the same whole. They also highlighted the complicity with social and health agents, considering themselves an active part of the promotion of care in connection with people in the community, even with a lack of training in specific areas and other resources that would improve the quality of public services.
In this area, the distribution of responsibility for care between the public and the community is detected as an area for further study. Whose responsibility is it? How are community resources supported by the public administration? How do these two levels interact?: "Society always comes before administration"; "The community is more prepared to offer care"; "The public sector cannot be ignored, support and resources are needed."
Understanding the Compassionate Community as a Social Innovation Platform in which there is a set of coordinated actors composing a comprehensive care system with a community approach, it is intended to influence the connections of the agents and their articulation for the sustainability of the process. The new community figures that are promoted from the different areas (the figure of community nurse promoted by Osakidetza) are not only a challenge, but also an opportunity to generate a coordinated and effective network in the promotion of care. Prototypes such as the tables for the articulation of figures with a community approach aim to address this issue.