At the Tomillo Foundation, we understand that supporting young people as they build a life plan requires much more than simply providing technical knowledge or vocational training. It means helping them develop the skills that will enable them to face personal, social, and professional challenges with independence, confidence, and responsibility.
This vision is part of an international movement that, over the past decade, has identified the development of social-emotional competencies as one of the main challenges facing education systems and inclusion policies. At the European level, the LifeComp framework, developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, provides a shared reference point for personal, social, and “learning to learn” competencies and highlights their importance for coping with complexity, engaging in lifelong learning, and participating responsibly in society.
In this context, the Tomillo Foundation launched a pedagogical innovation process in 2019 to systematize and apply these insights to our work with vulnerable youth. After analyzing various international models, we developed our own framework for social-emotional competencies, inspired primarily by the CASEL model—an international benchmark in the field of social-emotional learning—and adapted to the reality of our socio-educational intervention.
Since then, our goal has been twofold: on the one hand, to integrate this approach across the board into our educational and social and occupational integration programs; on the other hand, to generate knowledge, resources, and tools that may be useful to professionals and organizations that share the goal of supporting young people in building solid and sustainable life plans.
From the systematization of the model to the training of professionals
Systematizing the work carried out in recent years was the first step toward establishing a shared model for intervention in social-emotional skills. The next challenge was to ensure that this knowledge could be applied to the daily practice of those who work with young people, by providing tools to integrate these skills into educational and socio-educational processes.
Thanks to the support of the Ministry of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, in recent years we have been able to devote resources to transforming this model into a comprehensive training program. This process has allowed us to design a virtual learning environment consisting of 22 training modules, develop specific teaching materials, and launch various training sessions aimed at both Tomillo professionals and teachers, educators, social workers, guidance counselors, and other socio-educational professionals from organizations across the country.
The initial implementation experiences have made it possible to test the methodological approach and gather evidence regarding its applicability in real-world contexts, incorporating continuous improvements based on the participants’ experiences and evaluations.
The results of this testing process have been very positive. Approximately 90% of the participating professionals have not only improved their knowledge of social-emotional competencies but have also identified appropriate strategies for incorporating them into their educational and socio-educational practice. This experience has encouraged us to take it a step further and expand the scope of the initiative, fostering new spaces where this knowledge can be shared, enriched, and continue to evolve alongside other professionals and organizations.
Building a Learning Community
The journey does not end with the training. On the contrary, it serves as the starting point for an even more ambitious goal: to foster a learning community in which professionals, organizations, and institutions can share experiences, generate collective knowledge, and continue to strengthen social-emotional competencies as the cornerstone of socio-educational intervention.
To this end, the “Marcando Rutas” project, funded by the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and the 2030 Agenda, is enabling us to focus our efforts on strengthening this collaborative network. The goal is not only to offer high-quality training resources but also to foster opportunities for professionals from different fields to come together, promote the exchange of experiences, and continue to enrich our methodological approach through ongoing dialogue with social organizations, public administrations, and the academic community.
This initiative stems from a conviction that guides our work: educational innovation has a real impact when knowledge is shared, tested, and continues to evolve through collective experience.
The various knowledge-transfer initiatives that the Tomillo Foundation is carrying out in 2026 fall within this framework.
One of our major milestones has been our participation in the 10th National Conference of Second-Chance Schools, held on April 28, 2026, in Pamplona-Iruña. The conference brought together organizations from across the country committed to improving educational and employment opportunities for young people who have left the education system early or face difficulties in accessing training and employment.
Our participation allowed us to present the work carried out by the Tomillo Foundation on social-emotional skills and the training program designed for professionals. It also gave us the opportunity to learn about initiatives led by other organizations, identify shared challenges, and strengthen partnerships aimed at continuing to develop joint responses.
At the same time, we have sought to strengthen our dialogue with the academic community, as we are convinced that the relationship between professional practice, academic training, and educational research is essential to continuing to improve our programs.
In this regard, on March 26, 2026, the Tomillo Foundation participated in an event at the Faculty of Education Sciences at the University of Málaga, leading the training session “The Education Professional as a Teacher in the Field of Social-Emotional Competencies, ” as part of the course “The Professional Life of a Teacher” in the Bachelor’s Degree in Pedagogy.
During the session, we were able to share the general ideas behind our framework for social-emotional competencies and present some of the overarching strategies that guide its implementation. We also had the opportunity to explain the process of ideation, systematization, and organization behind the framework, as well as to delve deeper into one of its competency dimensions.
The experience proved particularly enriching because it allowed us to observe how young people who are training to work in the field of education receive, interpret, and apply this content. Furthermore, it confirmed that the training program designed by the Tomillo Foundation is applicable in diverse contexts and can be adapted to the needs of different professional profiles in the social, educational, and training sectors.
These two initiatives reflect a shared commitment: to remain connected both to the network of organizations working with vulnerable youth and to the academic community. We understand that improving our programs depends both on disseminating and sharing the knowledge we generate and on maintaining a constant attitude of listening, evaluating, learning, and continuous improvement.
Looking to the Future
This journey continues.
Over the next few months, we will continue to improve the training modules available online, adding new case studies, practical examples, and methodological resources to help adapt them to different educational and socio-educational contexts.
At the same time, we are developing a digital competency assessment tool that will enable more systematic and longitudinal monitoring of the development of young people’s social-emotional competencies, providing professionals with useful information to guide and adapt their support processes.
Our commitment remains the same as the one that drove this work from the very beginning: to generate useful knowledge for socio-educational intervention, to share it with other professionals, and to continue learning alongside those who, from various organizations and institutions, work every day to provide more and better opportunities for young people.
