Proximity and professional social intervention. A view from proximity Social Services

This article analyses the situation of social work in Spain. In the first part, we describe its origins and evolution, from first initiatives of community development, to the appearance and expansion of proximity Social Services. We will also study the normative and methodological elements that shape the model of proximity professional intervention. In the second part (third and fourth sections of the article), we use the results of the Inclusive Project (R+D+i) to define the methodological and institutional limits present nowadays and to describe some innovative practices that attempt to reverse these conditioning factors. The central challenge of proximity social work is crystallized in the use of methodologies that complement interventions of social accompaniment, with approaches of network that promote community social capital.