On Monday 19 February 2024, Mr Emilio Viciana, Regional Minister of Education and Ms Alicia Koplowitz, President of the foundation that bears her name; accompanied by Mr J. Ignacio Martín, Deputy Regional Minister of Education Policy; Dr Arango, Director of the Institute of Psychiatry and Mental Health of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital and Ms Ángela Ulloa, Director of Programmes of the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation; and Mr. J. Ignacio Martín, Deputy Regional Minister of Education Policy; Dr. Arango, Director of the Institute of Psychiatry and Mental Health of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital and Ms. Ángela Ulloa, Director of Programmes of the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation. Ángela Ulloa, Director of Programmes of the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation, which designed the mental health programme for schools, visited the Iker Casillas public special education school and announced the extension of care to 67 special education schools in the Community of Madrid.
The president of the Foundation commented: “All this is possible thanks to the joint work of clinicians and education professionals. I would like to thank them deeply for their commitment and especially highlight their work in the field of special education, for their great generosity in caring for the most vulnerable children and their families”. In addition, Alicia Koplowitz highlighted: “the programme is carried out within the framework of an agreement between the Regional Ministry of Education, Science and Universities, the Regional Ministry of Health and my Foundation”. A pioneering agreement, on which Emilio Viciana commented: “Thanks to this joint initiative of the Community of Madrid and the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation, which is developed in collaboration with the public hospitals Gregorio Marañón and La Princesa, specialised professionals visit the 67 public and subsidised special education centres, to offer their teachers and management teams all the advice and attention necessary to respond to the mental health needs of their more than 6,150 students”.
On the other hand, Ángela Ulloa, director of programmes at the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation, who designed the training and mental health care programmes for schools and is in charge of their technical management, explained: “Visiting a school like this one, we can see how the climate of trust created by the teachers for the students and their families facilitates the work of the clinical professionals who care for children and adolescents in their own educational centre”.
Through the training programme developed by the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation, in collaboration with the Directorate General for Bilingualism and Quality of Education, courses on child and adolescent mental health are offered, accessible to all schools (public, private and subsidised) in the Community of Madrid. This year a new course on mental health in people with intellectual disabilities will be available.