Working meeting between the researchers of the Department of Psychology of the UJA, Luis Joaquín García, Lourdes Espinosa, José Antonio Muela, Laura Zafra, David Jiménez and Jesús Sánchez, and the Managing Director of the INJ, Txema Burgaleta.
30/04/2024.- The team of the PROEMO Network of the University of Jaén (UJA) presented the development of the PROCARE initiative (Selective prevention through a transdiagnostic intervention for adolescents at risk of emotional problems) to the Managing Director of the Instituto Navarro de la Juventud (INJ), Txema Burgaleta in a telematic meeting in which UJA researchers Luis Joaquín García, José Antonio Muela, Lourdes Espinosa, David Jiménez, Laura Zafra and Jesús Sánchez participated.
Luis JoaquÍn García addressed the keys to PROCARE, the first transdiagnostic program of selective prevention at international level aimed at young people between 12 and 18 years of age at risk of suffering emotional problems. An initiative that in 2021 helped more than 1,500 adolescents throughout Spain, and in 2023 contributed to improving the emotional health of more than a thousand young people in the Balearic Islands. It is currently being implemented in the Jaén municipality of Marmolejo and in different parts of the province of Jaén thanks to funding from the Provincial Council of Jaén.
“The results of the intervention carried out by experts indicate the drastic reduction of emotional problems, the improvement of subjective quality of life and greater regulation of emotions among the young participants, and the benefit for their families,” said Luis Joaquín García, professor of Psychology at the UJA and main responsible for PROCARE.
Then, researchers David Jiménez and Laura Zafra, coordinators of PROCARE Marmolejo, and José Antonio Muela and Lourdes Espinosa, responsible for the module of expressed emotion dedicated to parents, delved into the development of the program, specifying each of the phases, from the initial screening, through the eight sessions, as well as the recall sessions at six and twelve months.
During the meeting, Luis Joaquín García made a tour of the main milestones achieved by the UJA team from 2015 to the present, with special emphasis on the “Report and Roadmap on the current status, needs and recommendations for the improvement of psychological assessment and the promotion of health and emotional well-being in young people”, carried out in 2018 and which will be updated in a new PROEMO Network roadmap for 2025, aimed at detecting current gaps and providing new recommendations. PROEMO is a research network (RED2022-134247-T) funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the State Research Agency, through the State Program to boost scientific-technical research and its transfer, within the framework of the State Plan for Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research 2021-2023).
In addition, other projects to promote the health and emotional well-being of adolescents, such as PROADEMO, DIGITAS, DAREMOS and Level Up, were also presented.
For his part, Txema Burgaleta explained to the UJA researchers the work carried out by the INJ through Tok Tok, an emotional wellbeing counseling for youth, and expressed the concern of the Navarrese entity for “the magnitude of the current problem of mental health of young people”. In this sense, it was called upon to study the feasibility of implementing in the medium term this program of prevention and promotion of the emotional wellbeing of adolescents in the population of Navarra.
This initiative is supported by the experience of PROCARE, an R+D+i project (PID 2019-111138RB-I00/) funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the State Research Agency), with the participation of professionals from the Psychology Department of the UJA, the Rovira i Virgili University, the Miguel Hernández University of Elche and the University of Miami (USA).
In addition, the Instituto de la Juventud (INJUVE), attached to the Ministry of Youth and Children, the Asociación Española de Ayuda Mutua contra Fobia Social y Trastornos de Ansiedad (AMTAES), the Confederación de Organizaciones de Psicopedagogía y Orientación de España (COPOE), the Federación Estatal de Lesbianas, Gais, Trans, Bisexuales, Intersexuales y más (FELGTBI+), the Consejo de la Juventud de España (CJE) and the Fundación Princesa de Girona are part of the project’s External Advisory Board.
