Director of the Balearic Office of Childhood and Adolescence (OBIA). He takes over from Serafín Carballo, dismissed in June for refusing the covid vaccine. He expresses his concern about the high rates of child poverty on the islands and the consequences of the health crisis on the mental health of young people.
Josep Lluís Riera (Palma, 1958) has been director of the Balearic Office for Children and Adolescents (OBIA) for the last month. With a degree in Social Education and management experience in the youth field, he will watch over the rights of minors on the islands until the end of the legislature.
You have little time, what will your priorities be?
I have found everything pretty much on track. There are some priorities, like putting some order into the visits. One of our responsibilities is to visit centres for minors and we are drawing up protocols so that they take place in a systematic way. We will also try to speed up the responses to all the complaints we receive as much as possible.
As your predecessor said in Parliament in April, children are in for “a long period of traumatic after-effects” as a result of the pandemic. Are there more mental health problems?
Our surveys tell us yes. During the pandemic, 16,000 responses were analysed and some of them told us that children were affected. We are concerned about this issue. Entities such as Unicef have already raised the alarm about a possible increase in suicides. There are children who are worried about leaving their house and do not want to participate in activities.
“Children living in shelters have stopped telling anyone because they feel stigmatized”
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