Greater Lisbon Is the Last Gap in Portugal's Child Trauma Counselling Network, and a 648,000 Euro Tender Closing on 6 October Would Fill It

Portugal runs 37 specialist teams that give free, continuing psychological support to children and young people who have been victims of domestic violence, or who watched it happen at home. Until the end of last year, the Lisbon metropolitan area had none of them. It now has one, in Cascais. A public tender that closes on 6 October would add three more and, on the government's account, close the last gap in national coverage.

The procurement is run by the CIG (Comissão para a Cidadania e a Igualdade de Género, the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality). Announcement of Procedure no. 22355/2026 was published on 7 September, and applications close on 6 October 2026. The total public investment is 648,000 euros, for an initial 12-month contract with the possibility of two consecutive annual renewals.

Where the three teams would go

The distribution was set on the average number of domestic violence occurrences per municipality, and it produces three units rather than four: one Resposta de Apoio Psicológico (Psychological Support Response, or RAP) for Lisbon, one for Sintra, and one covering Amadora and Loures together.

The district of Lisbon records the highest absolute volume of domestic violence occurrences in the country. Police across Portugal logged nearly 8,000 cases in the second quarter of this year alone. That it has been the region without specialist child teams is the fact the tender is built around, and the ministry says so directly in its announcement.

What a RAP actually does

The teams sit inside the RNAVVD (Rede Nacional de Apoio às Vítimas de Violência Doméstica, the National Network for the Support of Victims of Domestic Violence). Their remit is specialised psychological follow-up, continuing and free of charge, for children and young people, covering both direct victims and witnesses of violence in the home. They also support the parental and caring figures around the child.

That last element is the part most easily overlooked. A child who has lived with domestic violence is usually being parented by someone who has also lived with it, and the design assumes the adult needs support in order to be the support.

The shape of the contract

This is an international public tender for the acquisition of specialised services, which means the teams will be run by contracted providers rather than directly by the state. The 648,000 euros covers the first year across all three units. Two renewal years are possible but not guaranteed, which is the usual structure and the usual fragility: the victim support sector has spent this year warning about exactly that kind of funding horizon.

In June, 45 victim support associations across the domestic violence and human trafficking network warned publicly that they were close to collapse on current funding. A tender that creates three new teams on a 12-month contract does not answer that warning, but it does expand the network the warning was about.

The coverage claim, read carefully

"Coverage of 100 percent of the national territory" is the government's phrase, and it is a claim about geography rather than about capacity. Forty teams for a country of roughly ten million people, with one team covering two municipalities the size of Amadora and Loures, is national coverage in the sense that there is somewhere to refer a child in every region. It is not the same as saying there is enough of it.

The honest reading is that Portugal is moving from a map with a hole in its most populous region to a map without one. What the waiting lists look like inside each of those 40 teams is a separate question, and the tender documents do not answer it.

What this means for foreign residents

• The service is free and it is for the child, not for the case. Access to a RAP does not depend on a criminal complaint having been made or on a conviction. It runs through the national victim support network.
• Witnessing counts. A child who was not hit but who lived in the house is within the remit as a matter of design, not as an exception.
• If you are in Lisbon, Sintra, Amadora or Loures, the team is not there yet. The tender closes on 6 October and the contract runs for 12 months from award, so the earliest these units operate is later this year. Cascais is the one Lisbon-area unit already running.
• The route in is the existing network. The CIG runs a free national domestic violence information and support line on 800 202 148, with an SMS line on 3060 and an email address at [email protected]. Emergency situations go to 112.

For a family that has left a violent home, the practical difference between a service in Cascais and a service in Loures is a bus journey a child makes every week for months. That is the whole argument for putting the teams where the occurrences are, and it is why the distribution formula in this tender is the interesting part of it.