Gomez categorises the social work training programme into three Stages;
2000-2003, investigating and relaying information to the state about socioeconomic problems detected; 2004~2008, carrying out tasks designed by the programme; and 2008-2011, developing a professional practice. The social workers began by visiting over 6,500 ‘disconnected’ under-21-year-olds in Havana to enquire about their situations, with the ultimate aim of keeping them out of prison. Mirroring the young prisoners studied before, many of these youths had left education during or on completing secondary school, Only 2.5 per cent had professional parents, 69 per cent had families in ‘unfavourablesocial situations’, 37.8 per centlived in ‘marginal’ neighbourhoods, 263 had already been to prison and 165 were prisoners.“ Given the deterioration in the value of Cuban salaries during the Special Period, instead of registering in Cuba’s employment offices they had sought incomes through the informal sector or illegal activities. Importantly, however, 80 per cent of them said they would like to return to study, or enter employment.
Armed with this information, the revolutionary leadership sought to tackle the problem. Again harking back to the 1960s, study was offered as an employment option for disconnected youth.” A new Comprehensive Improvement Course was established nationwide from 1 October 2001, with students paid to study computer science, English, geography, history, and math in 3 hour classes 4 times a week. "the goal is for these young people to acquire knowledge and culture explain the information leaflet to have the opportunity for upgrading studying social integration and participation in the production or the provision of services in the first Academic Year almost 74,500 young people aged between 17 and 19 were enrolled in 333 schools with 4,812 instructors about 15 students per teacher almost 2/3 of the students were young women and one quarter had children from March 2001 the first group of Social Work graduates continued the investigation started by b u t s visiting 197,282 under 15 year olds in Havana material conditions were found to be critical in 898 homes with 1,520 children the social workers and universities students return to those homes with financial and material Aid delivered by the state this demonstrated to ordinary humans the state's political will to address the problems of the most vulnerable families on a Case by case basis institutions were mobilized to tackle the causes of these households deprivation by finding employment for parents meeting educational needs and granting social assistance pensions and other health between March and December 2001 the social workers assumed a huge project to measure in way every Cuban child up to 15 years old the point Gomez said was to go beyond the numbers to alleviate the causes he recalled Fidel Castro insisting quote I don't need the statistics I need the name and surname and the reason the child is underweight who knows this who is looking after the child I cannot sleep peacefully and you tell me that it is 3%, that is 1%, that is low in this country that we have improved no no who is that child what are the causes and what should be done and quote the social workers were insisted by members of the Cuban Communist Party the Cuban women's Federation and the Committees for the defense of the revolution and government officials and accompanied by nurses and technicians to recalibrate the weighing equipment everyone participated said Gomez who was by then leading the social worker plan nationally the country mobilized across the island over 2.2 million children were weighed and measured children found to be below average scores were visited at home and their family situation was evaluated to determine possible causes subsequently a program of food assistance was rolled out to 97,733 children with regular checkups organized the situation of 28,517 minors was described as critical catalyzing coordinated action from the institutions caring for them