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On 30 May 2025, the Youth Chair of the Universitat de València organised the 3rd Conference on socio-educational mentoring for adolescents and young people at the assembly hall of the Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy of the UV. The edition focused on the promotion of positive development through the MIL-CT (Media and Information Literacy for Critical Thinking) model, a proposal that integrates media and information literacy and critical thinking as key tools for the education and community mentoring of young people.
A conference to connect training, research and public politicies
In only half a day, the conference adressed professionals linked to work with young people — youth professionals, social workers, teachers, people from the community feid, university students, etc — to try and make them reflect on how to favour the comprehensive development of the youngsters, crtitical and committed to the current social and informative panorama.
The conference was based on three fundamental competences:
- Media Literacy: the capacity to analyse, evaluate and produce media contents through critical thinking.
- Information Literacy: the capability to search, verify, select and use information responsibly.
- Critical Thinking: the attitude and ability to think independently, question discourses and identifly biases and misinformation.
From this perspective, the need for education and community spaces where young people can develop tools to understand the world and to actively participate in it, favouring civic responsibility, media literacy and social compromise was obvious.
Continuity and the consolidation of a benchmark space
This conference is part of a cycle iniciated by the chair in 2023, aiming to consolidate a stable space to meet, educate and share for professionals who work with adolescents and young people. These conferences intend to promote socio-educational mentoring while combining the connexion, participation and promotion of personal and social competences.
With this third edition, the initiative reafirms its commitment with educational innovation, critical thinking and the reinforcement of public youth policies, from a practical perspective linked to research and dialogue between institutions, professionals and territory.
Acknowledgements and future plans
From the Youth Chair we want to acknowledge the participation of all the attendees as well as the collaboration of the institutions, speakers and organising team. The success of the comference reinforces our commitment and the construction of education and reflexion proposals to deal with the challenges young people faces.
We continue to work to offer shared thinking spaces, innovative education practices and actions to ensure the wellbeing and development of young people.
