COORDINATOR
Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology, she has been coordinator of the Official Master’s Degree in Mediation and Family Intervention at the University of Seville and teaches in 3 other official master’s degrees, as well as in the Doctoral program of the Faculty of Psychology.
She is currently the Director of the Applied Psychology Unit (UPA) of the University of Seville, responsible for the psychological care provided to all the university community.
Her research career has been focused on the field of family intervention, specifically in the design, implementation and evaluation of training and support programs for families from the approach of positive parenting.
For more than two decades she has been leading a research group specializing in and referent in the study and intervention in family contexts at psychosocial risk.
In addition to carrying out basic research projects, her research activity has been characterized by its applied nature and by being especially focused on the transfer of knowledge with high social impact.
In the field of knowledge transfer, her activity has focused on institutional consultancy and training of professionals.
She is a founding member and President of the Association for the Study and Support of Families (ESAFAM) and is a member since its inception of the Expert Group on Positive Parenting that advises the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces.
The difficulties associated with the exercise of parenthood today have contributed to the fact that both the legislative framework and theoretical approaches highlight the need to implement actions to promote the parental skills necessary to facilitate family functioning that guarantees child well-being.
Therefore, family intervention and support actions have increased and evolved greatly in recent decades, with many sectors and public administrations currently having child and family services that include family support actions from the Positive Parenting approach and the promotion of the well-being of children and adolescents.
These actions are very varied and differ, fundamentally, depending on the level of prevention, the recipients, the type of intervention and the sectors or entities responsible for its implementation.
Only in some cases, these interventions are carried out through systematic and empirically validated programs.
In this sense, although the increase in these resources is a significant advance, the current challenge is to ensure that the actions that are implemented incorporate evidence-based practices and programs that meet quality standards in the design, implementation and evaluation phases of the interventions.
In this framework, the communications of this symposium present four experiences developed in Spain that demonstrate the incorporation of good evidence-based practices in family care and support programs and resources.