The progress of Psychology and Speech Therapy in the last decades and, by extension, its multidisciplinary application in favour of personal and social well-being have been key to the proliferation of different professional opportunities for graduates of the Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy of the Universitat de València, host of the last Employement and Entrepreneurship Forum that took place last Friday, 28 February.
This was the matter that set off the UV principal’s speech, Maria Vicenta Mestre, at the welcome of the meeting that she presided over in front of the student body of both degrees, alongside the dean of the faculty, Antonio Ferrer, and the dean of the Official College of Psychologists of the Valencian Community, Francisco José Santolaya, president also of the General Council of Psychology of Spain.
Besides, the vice principal of Permanent Training, Educational Transformation and Employment, Ángeles Solanes; the CEO of Fundació Lluís Alcanyís, José Manuel Almerich; the manager of the UV General Foundation, Cristóbal Suria; the principal’s delegate for Employment and Internship, Jesús Soret; the decanal team of the Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy; the director of the UV Speech Therapy Clinic, Vicent Rosell; and the dean of the Official College of Speech Therapists of the Valencian Community, María Jesús Lluch, among other academic authorities.
With full capacity, the principal Maria Vicenta Mestre highlighted how the different aspects of Psychology, beyond traditional specialisations, applied to Human Resources, Psychology of Labour, social disorders, in the jurisdictional scope, or even sports have facilitated the increase in graduates in the whole Spanish State, as well as a wide range of professional opportunities.
“We psychologists have detected problems and we have been able to provide solutions, and we accompany people from their birth to their death; it is a vocational profession that allows us to work in multidisciplinary teams and support those in any period of crisis”, like the DANA on 29/10, where the Universitat de València provided 5 000 instances of psychological support, maintain the principal, who reminded the auditorium that the UV is the second best Spanish university in international rankings, which is largely due to quality training and excellence in its studies. “You must be sure of your training and that you’re prepared to work in any aspects of the profession, as well as in scientific and academic research,” she concluded.
Maria Vicenta Mestre insisted as well in the task of training by the Universitat, which “we can only complete if we accompany you in your path toward job placement”. An endeavour that is carried out from different university services, UVjob and initiatives like Forums that seek to connect live companies with future professionals among them, and to add to the knowledge of the student body the maximum information possible so they can firmly draw up the steps toward practising their profession.
A topic that the dean of the faculty, Antonio Ferrer, highlighted encouraging likewise the active search for employment by the student body and that Francisco José Santola endorsed claiming that “continuous effort always pays off.”
Professional opportunities: Speech Therapy
With the main purpose of connecting the student body (more than 300 students enrolled) with companies, entities, and public organisations that seek highly qualified future professionals, the Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy UV has been for the first time the host of the Employement and Entrepreneurship Forum of the Universitat de València, driven by the Office of the Vice-Principal for Lifelong Learning, Educational Transformation and Employment through UVjob and UV General Foundation.
This Forum gathered around twenty companies and entities during an intense session marked by the professional opportunities of future graduates.
As for the Speech Therapy opportunities, round tables and colloquiums that included, among others, the participation of the Official College of Speech Therapists of the CV, served to transfer to the students of the degree the specialties of the profession, such as the clinical (with solvency in the private sector), the educational, the sanitary and the judicial.
In this sense, the Official College works for the promotion of the profession in the public health system, since at present access is common in hospitals but not in primary care -only in early care and with very few places-, they explain.
Likewise, the College faces two other great challenges for the profession in the public sphere, which are: the educational section, where the need to introduce the figure of the speech therapist in educational centers is claimed, and the judicial, where this figure already exists but requires support to maintain itself.
Professional opportunities: Psychology
Gemma, Eva, and Marc are three students of fourth year of the Psychology degree that visited the job fair with various objectives: Gemma’s care was very clear, she wanted information about the clinical branch, her calling; while Eva and Marc preferred to work as Social Psychologists, which they had already had experience with during their internship.
This was one of the options that the Red Cross, for example, offered, which was promoting both voluntary work and professional internships in the social environment, specifically, in the assistance of homeless people whose situation tends to cause a series of mental diseases or disorders.
Meanwhile, the Delegation of Defence in the Valencian Community were seeking psychologists to act in extraordinary cases or to attend to those same people in the military like it happened after the DANA.
These are only a sample of what was there at the stands that during the morning completed a session, designed and thought entirely for professional opportunities, both in the public and private spheres, by future graduates of Psychology and Speech Therapy through simultaneous round tables alongside experts.
Among the organisations there were companies in the education, social, and hospital sector, public organisations, unions, associations and NGOs, who sought to establish contact unrealised university talent in the UV, facilitating them job opportunities and personal and direct information about the most current sought-after profiles by the job market.
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