The harsh COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the pressing needs in child and adolescent mental health, which has seen an exponential increase in these disorders in Spanish children and adolescents.

During this time, the Foundation over which I preside has not stopped its activities at all. On the contrary, we have continued our work with enthusiasm. The scientific area has continued to develop training and research programmes in Psychiatry, Psychology, Child and Adolescent Neurosciences and Neuropaediatrics.  We have intensified contacts with our network of fellows, researchers and former fellows to maintain proximity and show our support for all their efforts and the difficulties of their daily work.

In addition, from the new area of care and training in child and adolescent mental health at the Foundation, we have worked with enthusiasm to make another of the projects I had in mind a reality: to make mental health promotion and care more accessible to children, adolescents and their families, bringing it closer to schools. All this, through the design and sponsorship of two pioneering programmes in Spain, launched and developed in collaboration with the Departments of Education and Health of the Community of Madrid and with the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital in Madrid.

The first is the Mental Health Liaison Programme for educational centres, whose objective is to attend to children and adolescents in their schools or institutes through a clinical team that works with the educational community and acts as a liaison or bridge with mental health centres. The second is the training programme in child and adolescent mental health for teachers, counsellors and families, which is already part of the continuous training of teachers in the Community of Madrid.

This initiative of the Foundation, as well as the desire to promote the joint work of Education and Health, have inspired the programme of the 16th Scientific Symposia.

As I have said on other occasions, I hope that this initiative will integrate the work of clinicians and education professionals in a joint line of action that promotes emotional well-being and addresses mental health needs in the school environment, helping to alleviate the suffering caused in our children and their families by these ‘illnesses of the soul’.

Alicia Koplowitz
President