European project wants to improve the mental health of children from vulnerable families

Teachers and other education and health professionals will be trained as part of a European project aimed at strengthening the mental health of children from vulnerable family members, the University of Coimbra (UC) announced on Tuesday.

The Let’s Talk About Children project, which in Portugal is coordinated by UC and is also attended by the Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra (CHUC), brings together eleven institutions from nine countries.

The goal is for professionals to “be able to acquire new skills to work with families for the well-being of children” who live in “vulnerable family settings such as, for example, families with mental illness, social difficulties or integration,” UC said in a statement.

The Let’s Talk About Children program will be implemented in primary and secondary schools in the Coimbra region, as well as in psychiatric and psychiatric services for children and adults throughout the country.

The project, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland, was funded by the European Commission in the amount of about three million euros under the EU4Health program (which supports projects aimed at solving health problems).

The intervention is based on the methodology that gave the project its name.

It is “an evidence-based psychiatric intervention created in Finland by psychiatrist Titti Solanthus, focused on the child and the family, with the main goal of improving the mental health of children, as well as preventing transmission of infection from generation to generation.” mental health,” explained Joaquim Sereheira, professor at the University of California School of Medicine, specialist in psychiatry and project coordinator in Portugal.

According to Joaquim Sereheira, “this methodology includes the training of professionals working with families so that they can acquire certain skills that will be fundamental for them to identify the psychosocial needs of children and their families at an early stage.”

In the first phase of the project, consultations will be held with organizations providing support to families in vulnerable situations, such as schools, municipalities, health services and associations.

The goal is to “identify and evaluate existing responses, as well as their limitations and difficulties,” the professor added.

Then the training of specialists working with families and children in the field of education and health will begin.

This training will help professionals master methodologies that will enable them to “early recognize vulnerable families and, through interdisciplinary interventions, promote parenting skills, child psychosocial development and whole family mental health,” he added.

Consultation work is already underway, and the training phase for medical workers is scheduled for June. The public presentation of the project will take place at the beginning of this month at the UC at the “Let’s talk about children” symposium.

In Portugal, in addition to Joaquim Sereheira, researcher at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of California and the Institute of Clinical and Biomedical Research of Coimbra Ana Paula Silva, professor of the same faculty and specialist in pediatrics Fernanda Rodriguez, psychiatrist Tanya Vieira. da Silva (leader of the CHUC team) and child psychiatrists Maria Laureano and Sarah Pedroso.

The project will last until 2025 with the participation of institutions from Portugal, Finland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy, Estonia, Greece, Poland and Romania.