Luis Joaquín García, professor at the University of Jaén, met with the Secretary of State for Youth and Children, Rubén Pérez, and the Director General of the Spanish Youth Institute (INJUVE), Margarita Guerrero, to present projects such as PROCARE, DAREMOS PROADEMO, Digitas, Level Up or the roadmap of the PROEMO Network.
16/1/2024.- The professor of the University of Jaén (UJA) and main responsible of the Network for the Promotion of Health and EMOtional Welfare of Young People (PROEMO (RED2022-134247-T)) Luis Joaquín García held yesterday a working meeting with the Secretary of State for Youth and Children, Rubén Pérez, and the General Director of the Spanish Youth Institute (INJUVE), attached to the Ministry of Youth and Children, Margarita Guerrero. The meeting was also attended by Jon Rodríguez, cabinet director of the Secretary of State, Victoria Rodriguez, head of service of Interministerial Programs of INJUVE, and Jesus Sanchez, researcher at UJA and member of the PROADEMO initiative.
The purpose of the meeting was to assess possible synergies and present to the Ministry of Youth and Children team different interdisciplinary initiatives for the promotion of health and emotional well-being of young people, which are under the umbrella of the PROEMO Network and its roadmap, such as PROCARE, PROADEMO, DAREMOS, Digitas or Level Up, led or in which UJA actively participates.
First, Luis Joaquín García put into context through different data the current difficult situation of mental health in adolescents, aggravated after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Likewise, he reviewed the joint work carried out by the PROEM Network and INJUVE since 2018, such as the publication of a monograph on mental health and emotional well-being of young people in the Journal Estudios de Juventud, their participation in the development of the Youth 2030 Strategy, the co-organization of an online conference on mental health and youth in the pandemic or the collaboration of INJUVE as External Advisory Council of all the Network’s projects.
He then explained the keys to PROCARE (‘Selective prevention through a transdiagnostic intervention for adolescents at risk of emotional problems’), a pioneering initiative worldwide in the field of prevention and personalized medicine, as it is the first selective prevention program aimed at adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age at risk of suffering emotional problems. It has recently helped more than 1,000 adolescents in the Balearic Islands, and is currently being implemented in the town of Marmolejo, Jaén.
He also stressed the objectives of the PROADEMO project (‘PROmocionAnDo la salud y el bienestar EMOcional de los adolescentes en el sector educativo, sanitario y la sociedad’), based on the development of useful materials and tools for educational, health and youth information personnel, as well as for the adolescents themselves, with the aim of improving the quality of the services offered in the field of adolescent emotional wellbeing and increasing emotional literacy.
During his presentation, Luis Joaquín García addressed the impact of other projects such as DAREMOS, focused on the early detection of adolescents at high risk of developing emotional problems such as anxiety or depression; Digitas, which seeks to enhance the mental health literacy of adolescents, through the creation of videos, podcasts or sound fiction documentaries, among other tools; or Level Up, a project led by a European consortium that aims to provide a new understanding of the transversal skills of higher education students.
The Secretary of State for Youth and Children, Rubén Pérez, praised the research work of the PROEMO Network and emphasized its “concern for the digital skills of minors and the responsible use of social networks and prevention at the level of mental health in this area, especially in the most vulnerable young population”.
For her part, the Director General of INJUVE, Margarita Guerrero, insisted on INJUVE’s concern for the emotional well-being of young people and adolescents, and advocated for “continuing to strengthen partnerships with the PROEMO Network team, supporting and advising within the External Advisory Council on their projects and initiatives”.
Likewise, Margarita Guerrero confirmed her attendance to the training day of knowledge transfer on health and emotional well-being of young people, organized by the UJA team of the PROEMO Network and the Provincial Association of Youth Technicians ‘Dinamia’ this Thursday, January 18 in the Green Classroom of the C1 Building of the Las Lagunillas Campus. In that sense, he pledged to continue holding working meetings with the aim of establishing new networking networks between researchers, professionals in the field of youth and entities, with the aim of continuing with the dissemination of research results of the PROEMO Network in the field of prevention of emotional problems in the adolescent population.
