Within the framework of FIIAPP's COPOLAD III program, together with SENDA, the National Service for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Drugs and Alcohol of the Government of Chile, we have developed the first prototypes on innovation in consumption and care for children and teenagers under the protection of the State.

This week the Agirre Center team presented in Chile the work carried out during the last year together with SENDA, within the framework of the action of the COPOLAD III Program: "Development of a citizen innovation laboratory for the co-design of solutions for the comprehensive approach to the challenges of consumption, care, accompaniment and care of children and teenagers under the protection of the State”.

The systems mapping, the spaces for listening and collective interpretation and the prototyping and scaling of initiatives have allowed SENDA to develop the first spaces for experimentation in drug policies in the Maule Region. During this week, several co-creation sessions have been carried out with external agents and SENDA professionals, with the aim of analysing and providing concrete responses that can complement or improve these initiatives.

After the welcome by the Director of SENDA, Natalia Riffo Alonso, the presentations of the portfolio of public policies and innovations co-created with the communities were carried out, on April 16 and 17.

COPOLAD has presented in Santiago de Chile the first results of the Innovation Laboratory that it has promoted together with the Government of Chile (SENDA) in the Maule Region during the last 12 months, with the aim of improving the care of children and teenagers consuming and who are under the guardianship of the state. These are the most significant results of the experimentation portfolio that will be implemented over the next few months:

1. SENDA will develop a georeferencing system for the supply of existing public services in the field of prevention and comprehensive care so that all institutions working in this field can offer comprehensive assistance. In addition to visualizing and locating what already exists, this system will also allow you to visualize the "non-supply" or the shortcomings that the system currently has. In addition, it is expected that the new digital tool will automatically propose reinforcements of connections between existing services.

2. SENDA, in collaboration with local institutions, will transform the use of two residences into a center of advanced experimentation to test new mental health tools for the treatment of children. As an example, new tools for the prevention of problematic use, non-verbal communication, self-care systems and new supervision systems for professional teams will be tested.

3. For the first time, SENDA will promote a battery of initiatives designed by the youth for the development of sociolaboral integration skills. Previously, these initiatives were designed without their direct involvement.

4. SENDA will lead the transformation of the intersectoral coordination tables of the Maule Region into innovation platforms that allow the most complex problems to be addressed collaboratively (for example, harm reduction policies). In this way, any institution or laboratory of innovation in public policies that wishes to test more innovative or disruptive solutions will be able to do so in a protected environment.

5. SENDA will activate a learning community to support the implementation of these prototypes but, at the same time, serve for other teams and institutions to acquire new skills in social innovation. The goal is for this community to be able to promote the scaling of ten new interconnected Social Innovation Laboratories in Chile in the coming months.

The initiatives were presented to the SENDA governing team on April 18. This session, which closes the work carried out during a year in the Maule Region, aimed to analyze the work developed and expand new lines of work to be strengthened in the context of social innovation. After this process, the Maule Region feature the Social Innovation Laboratory promoted by COPOLAD and Agirre Center, which will generate governance or joint learning systems to address complex challenges through the systematization of spaces for mapping agents and initiatives, co-creation and listening and collective interpretation.

Agirre Center continues working on the COPOLAD III program for the design, implementation and evaluation of Social Innovation Laboratories specialized in drug policies in Colombia, Peru and Uruguay.