The Provincial Association of Youth Professionals has highlighted the value of the help provided through these two initiatives to nearly 2,000 schoolchildren at risk of suffering emotional problems and their families.
20/04/2022.- The DAREMOS and PROCARE projects, which have provided free professional help to nearly 2,000 schoolchildren at risk of suffering emotional problems and their families, have been awarded in the Health category at the Dinamia Awards, organized by the Provincial Association of Youth Professionals.
The sixth edition of the Dinamia Awards has recognized 21 projects developed by young people or for young people with a real impact of social transformation in the municipalities of the province of Jaén. The award ceremony, held at the Casa de la Juventud de Martos, was attended by the mayor of the City Council of Martos, Victor Manuel Torres, the program advisor of the Andalusian Youth Institute in Jaén, José María Urbano, and the deputy of Youth, Pilar Lara, along with the president of the Provincial Association of Youth Professionals, Antonio Lara.
Luis Joaquín García López, professor at the University of Jaén (UJA) and main responsible for DAREMOS and PROCARE, was in charge of collecting the award. In his speech, he emphasized that “both projects were implemented in response to the massive increase in emotional problems in young people due to the impact of the pandemic. In that sense, it is estimated that more than 1.5 million young people are at risk or have emotional problems such as anxiety or depression in Spain alone. Therefore, it was and continues to be necessary to provide the population with strategies for emotional strength, not only in the face of pandemic fatigue, but also in the face of the instability and uncertainty with which our young people, especially vulnerable groups, currently coexist”.
Likewise, Luis Joaquín García highlighted that “thanks to DAREMOS and PROCARE, with the support of the PROEM Network, almost 2,000 young people and their families have been able to benefit from a protocol in line with current times: an emotional antigen test, an emotional PCR and if risk or emotional problems were detected, an emotional vaccine to provide our young people with resilience”. Finally, he stressed that “a society has no future without emotionally healthy adolescents” and insisted on “the need to invest urgently in the promotion and prevention of the health and emotional wellbeing of young people”.
The DAREMOS Project, which started in October 2020, has received funding from the FEDER-Andalusia program and the participation of researchers from the Department of Psychology of the UJA, Luis Joaquín García, Lourdes Espinosa and José Antonio Muela, as well as Mª Belén Díez, from the Department of English Philology of the UJA and Arturo Montejo, from the Department of Computer Science of the UJA and member of the UJA spin-off YottaCode, together with Juan Miguel Gómez, researcher from the Institute of Biomedical Research of Malaga (IBIMA/FIMABIS).
For its part, PROCARE, which began in January 2021 with funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation, has had a working team formed by Luis Joaquín, García José Antonio Muela, Lourdes Espinosa and Mª del Mar Díaz, from the Department of Psychology at the UJA, Josefa Canals, Professor of Psychology at the Rovira i Virgili University, José Antonio Piqueras, Professor at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche, and Jill Ehrenreich-May, Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami (USA). UU). In turn, institutions and entities such as the Youth Institute (INJUVE) of the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, the Spanish Association of Mutual Help against Social Phobia and Anxiety Disorders (AMTAES), the Confederation of Organizations of Psychopedagogy and Guidance of Spain (COPOE), the Youth Council of Spain (CJE) or the FELGTBI+ Youth group have been part of the External Advisory Board of both projects.
In addition to PROCARE and DAREMOS (Health), the Dinamia 2022 Awards have had a wide range of winners in different categories: Aula Verde de la Universidad de Jaén (Environment), Rubén Hinojosa (Art), Manu Erena and María Elena Higueruelo (Young Creation), Asociación Musical Sacamoños (Culture), Fátima García (Sports), Antonio Mendoza (European Dimension), FAMPA Los Olivos (Education), Escuela Virtual de Formación de Marmolejo (Training), Centro de Información Juvenil de Villacarrillo (Youth Information Center of Villacarrillo) (Youth Information), Local Municipal Rehearsal Antonio Sola Melguizo (Infrastructure), Asociación Juvenil Biatia Racing Team (Technological Innovation), Ana Isabel Gómez (Research), Revista Participe+ (Media), Asociación OBORUS (Leisure and Free Time), Asociación Juvenil JUVCAN (Participation), Lola de la Hoz (Professional Dynamics), Jaenícolas (Resources), Miniempresa TALME (Solidarity), Medievo en tu Sopa (Values) and Asociación Cultural RockXimeno (Equality).
