MENTAL HEALTH SPAIN launches the fourth edition of the ‘Inclusive Education, Positive Mental Health’ campaign
The initiative seeks to offer information and practical support to develop mental health prevention and care activities with children and adolescents in the educational field.
The SALUD MENTAL ESPAÑA Confederation begins the fourth edition of its program ‘Inclusive education, positive mental health’whose objective is to offer information and practical support, for the development of prevention activities and mental health care with children and adolescents in the educational field.
Promoting mental health in childhood is essential for subsequent individual and social development in adulthood. Under this premise, the project focuses on the school environment, given the multiple personal variables that coexist in this scenario and on which work can be done at a psycho-emotional level.
Sara Domingueztechnician of Projects and Studies of the Confederation, explains the importance and the need to address mental health from the educational field, «Since schools are one of the spaces where boys and girls spend most of their time and where they constantly interrelate. For this reason, they are the most appropriate spaces to carry out activities for the prevention and promotion of mental health». According to the WHO, many of the risk factors for suffering from a mental health problem are malleable and, therefore, can be modified and intervened on.
The ‘Inclusive education, positive mental health’ program began in the 2019/2020 school year, and was extended in 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, with funding from the Ministry of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda. The Confederation wanted to continue the campaign, one more edition, to continue with its implementation during this 2022-2023 academic year, as part of its commitment to awareness strategies that promote and facilitate the prevention of psychosocial disorders from childhood, in which work and support for agents of socialization such as school and family is essential.
To date, in the three editions held, the program has reached about 19,500 students and at least to 975 teachers and teachersof 521 educational centersspread over fifteen autonomous communities.
The project is aimed at the student population between 8 and 12 years old, and is based on the knowledge and management of emotions, as a protection factor to achieve adequate mental health. To this end, various materials have been developed for both teachers and students, among which the ‘Emoteca‘, an interactive tool in which stories of different characters are raised, so that the user can make decisions and create their own story.
How to access the program
Educational centers interested in implementing this program can do so by contacting either the Confederation, the federation corresponding to their autonomous community, or through the entities of the SALUD MENTAL ESPAÑA network, which are, ultimately, the that give support and continuous support to the centers for the development of the program.