The results of interdisciplinary initiatives in which the University of Jaén participates, such as PROCARE, DAREMOS, PROADEMO, DIGITAS and Level uP, were presented at the conference on transfer to society held in Malaga.
30/06/2023.- Researchers from the University of Jaén (UJA) and collaborators of the PROEM Network have stressed the importance of prevention and promotion in the field of health and emotional well-being of young people, in the framework of the day of transfer to society that they have organized at the Cultural Center La Térmica in Malaga.
At the opening of the conference, Luis Joaquín García, professor at the UJA, insisted that “a resilient Spain needs resilient young people. A society has no future without emotionally healthy adolescents, so now more than ever there is a need for urgent investment in promoting the health and emotional well-being of young people”. In this sense, she emphasized that “Spain can bet on the structuralization of evidence-based protocols to ensure that no young person is left behind. There are tools that work in the early detection of emotional problems in young people and initiatives to strengthen them emotionally to improve their resilience in the face of adversity such as DAREMOS or PROCARE”.
Then, in the first round table, the director of The European Youth Information and Counselling Agency (ERYICA), Eva Reina, presented the keys to the YI MINDS project, which aims to improve the knowledge of youth professionals to support young people at risk and the need to invest in programs to improve the health and emotional well-being of adolescents; the representatives of the Spanish Youth Institute (INJUVE), Victoria Rodríguez and Luis Caballero, discussed in depth the work related to youth mental health, which is carried out by INJUVE with the development of documents such as the Youth Strategy 2030 and the Action Plan; and the 1st Vice-President and Head of Feminism and Human Rights of the Spanish Youth Council (CJE), Laura Selena Benítez, analyzed the current situation of job instability and lack of opportunities suffered by a high percentage of young people, which significantly affects their emotional wellbeing.
Afterwards, Esteban Redolfi, as Director of Strategy and Innovation of the Princess of Girona Foundation, chaired by HRH Leonor de Borbón y Ortiz, explained some of the programs they champion, such as Generation Talent, Generation Teachers, Generation Purpose, Generation Awardees and Amplify You. In turn, in a virtual way, Toni Martí, responsible for integral health of the FELGTBI+, left a video message about the importance of prevention and promotion of mental health in the LGTBI+ collective. After him, there was a debate and the sharing of several interdisciplinary initiatives that aim to promote the health and emotional well-being of young people by researchers from the UJA. First, Jesús Sánchez spoke about the PROADEMO project, to improve the competencies of professionals in the education, health and youth information sectors in the emotional management of young people, with their participation throughout the process. Secondly, Manuel Vivas described the results of Level uP, a European project that aims to improve students’ understanding of soft skills in higher education through the implementation of basic and advanced workshops for success in life and work. And, thirdly, David Jiménez and Laura Zafra developed the PROCARE initiative, the first transdiagnostic initiative of selective prevention at international level that has demonstrated its effectiveness in the intervention of adolescents at risk (PROCARE+) and at high risk (PROCARE-I) of developing emotional problems such as anxiety or depression during the pandemic, and which is currently being implemented in educational centers in the Balearic Islands.
In the second round table, which had the UJA researcher José Antonio Muela as moderator, the protagonism was for self-help resources, psycho-pedagogical, educational, health and from the field of youth to promote health and emotional well-being in young people. Lourdes Espinosa, a researcher at the UJA, opened the round of presentations with a breakdown of the different resources and tools that have been implemented by the Digitas project to address social anxiety disorder and other emotional problems in adolescents. Together with her, IBIMA-BIONAND Genomics ECAI researcher Mª Jesús Pinto presented the results of the DAREMOS project, on an epigenetic marker that has been shown to play a role in the evaluation of anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents.
Finally, Ana Cobos, president of the Confederación de Organizaciones de Psicopedagogía y Orientación de España (COPOE) assessed the situation of adolescents from the point of view of the school counselor and provided information on proposals to address the increasing emotional difficulties of young people in the school context; Enrique Vargas, president of the Spanish Association of Mutual Help against Social Phobia and Anxiety Disorders (AMTAES), stressed the importance of anxiety disorders and the benefits of mutual help among those affected; and Antonio Lara, vice president of the Andalusian Association of Youth Professionals (AATJ), developed some of the actions they carry out aimed at the integral development and empowerment of young people and emphasized the need to implement evidence-based interventions to help adolescents emotionally.
About 70 people from different professional fields (education, health, youth information, families, students, association representatives and others) from different autonomous communities of Spain attended the conference.
