The child protection system of the Valencian Community has two types of resources to develop and implement its assigned protection functions: Residential Care Centers and Day Care Centers or Children's Day Care Centers. There are currently 60 Children's Day Centers in the Valencian Community, grouped into two categories: Coexistence and Educational Support Centers and Socio-Labor Integration Centers, with a total of 1,059 subsidized places. However, the administration lacks indicators to evaluate the centers' work. Furthermore, childcare institutions in the Valencian Community are calling for a system of indicators that provides information on the centers, the activities carried out, the socio-educational work carried out with children and families, and the management and impact of the resource on society.
The construction of indicators for the management of the centers' socio-educational work is the objective of this doctoral thesis project, based on the conviction that a system of indicators can be an effective tool in demanding political and social responsibility for one of the most vulnerable groups in society: children and adolescents.

The thesis is developed from a micro perspective, but one that recognizes the complexity of the object of analysis, providing a valid and simple instrument for everyday application, which helps, through the disaggregation of elements, to understand the complex globality of Juvenile Day Centers and offer a tool for their improvement. Therefore, this research has a practical vocation, but at the same time it dialogues with theory. On the one hand, it contextualizes the work carried out by Juvenile Day Centers and, on the other, it projects possible changes that improve socio-educational intervention and management of the centers. Special attention is paid to the quality of management and socio-educational interventions and to the participation of each of the agents involved in underaged centers. From the conviction that understanding reality is the first step to transforming it.

For all these reasons, the objective of this thesis is to make visible, through the tool of the indicator system, we analyze the work carried out by Day Care Centers for Minors, providing information to the stakeholders working there and increasing knowledge about this sector, thus offering the scientific basis for management and decision-making both in the public sphere and in that of the social entities that manage a large part of the centers.

In order to understand the sector in which Day Care Centers for Minors operate, we begin by characterizing the Third Sector of Social Action, its conceptualization, and something of its history, in order to understand the role it plays in meeting social needs, in the exercise of social rights; in short, in the production of social well-being. This leads us to question the possible models of public policy attention, delving into the mixed or collaborative model between the State, the Market, and the Third Sector of Social Action. This social reality is not free from debates and challenges, some of them closely related to the situation of Day Care Centers for Minors, especially the evaluation of the centers, financing, and the commercialization of social action, among others. The majority of Children's Day Centers are managed by social action entities, so we will delve into the management of Third Sector Social Action organizations.

Program evaluation and indicator development provide the theoretical foundations for building our system of indicators for evaluating the centers. The framework used for this framework, and which we discuss in this chapter, are the systematic evaluation model of Stufflebeam and Schiklield (1987); the organizational management model of Fantova (2011); and finally, the study on inclusion indicators conducted by the Luís Vives Foundation (2011).
To understand the specific research context in which the centers' activities were born and developed, we review the history of Children's Day Centers as child protection resources in the Valencian Community, and we analyze the current actions, centers, and services for protecting children and adolescents in situations of risk or neglect.

Along with center management, socio-educational intervention is the other key element for understanding the framework of this thesis, as it is the specialized action carried out by Day Care Centers for Minors, which is, in turn, framed within the protection and promotion of minors and adolescents.

The field research was carried out in four phases. The first phase involved information identification, in which we reviewed primary sources, legislation, key informants, and specialized literature. In the second phase, we gathered information provided by the centers' own professionals through the organization of two focus groups. This information served as the basis for the initial proposal for the evaluation indicator system. The third phase served to analyze the collected information and organize it logically, using the aforementioned theoretical foundations. The indicator construction process was then carried out, defining the objectives, standards, and information sources for each indicator. Once this initial indicator system was assembled, it was evaluated and contrasted through expert judgment. In the fourth phase, and after analyzing the expert judgment, the final indicator system proposal was finalized.

The elements that ultimately formed this indicator system are organized into four phases: The context assessment phase consists of three dimensions: The population dimension, the territorial resources dimension, and the citizen participation dimension. The input evaluation phase is the phase in which four management processes are evaluated, according to Fantova's (2011) organizational management model. In our indicator system, each of these processes corresponds to a dimension: The economic-financial management dimension; the management of people's input or contributions; the dialogue dimension; and the organizational culture dimension. In the process evaluation phase, the levels and moments of planning intersect with the management process and the socio-educational intervention process, organized according to the dimensions of inclusion (Luís Vives Foundation, 2011) and the three moments in which the Individualized Educational Project for minors is structured in Children's Day Centers, according to the regulations of these centers. In the product evaluation, the information obtained in this phase informs the results of the program and serves to verify the effects of the program, both in the management of the centers and in the socio-educational intervention carried out. In our indicator system, product evaluation focuses on three dimensions: The quality dimension, the educational process dimension, and the structuring dimension

This indicator system is complemented by a glossary of our own creation that explains each of the terms that appear in the indicator system, facilitating the understanding of concepts whose interpretation could lead to misunderstandings.

Finally, the research includes a series of summaries, since the process carried out in this thesis has led to the development and presentation of a product, the indicator system. Therefore, no conclusions are presented as such.which should wait for the experimental validation of said system.