According to the web of this project, “aesthetic experiences -musical, plastic, literary experiences- are frequent in our lives, but their explanation and understanding, as well as the exploration of their possibilities, would depend on the application of a scientific perspective which would help us explain how they are psychologically constructed, and how we could use them to make them be a preventive activity facing social and psychological problems”. This is the philosophy of this project: art and culture at the service of integration and as a way of preventing social and mental problems in the youngest children. 

The intervention programme will consist of 12 sessions which will be held on Saturdays from 10:00 to 13:00. There will be workshops from 28 January to 27 May in the Cultural Centre La Nau. Registration is open, free and places are limited. Registrations and detailed information on the content, duration of the workshops, conferences and other complementary activities are explained in the web: http://www.uv.es/cultura/artiment

The training programme is complemented with debate forums and conferences in La Nau to enable the opening of ways of analysing and giving data and relevant approaches to expand knowledge and research in this field. The opening conference, titled ‘Adolescencia: hacia un desarrollo saludable’ (Adolescence: towards a healthy development) will be held next 25 January and will be given by María Zarza, from the Berklee College of Music and Milos Stohanovic, head of programmes of the United Nations UNODC Serbia. 

During the months to come, the participation in the conference cycle of the following people is expected: José Miñarro (UV), Miguel Arraiz (architect), Alicia Ventura (programme ‘Arte y Salud’), Manuel Cuadrado (UV) and Marcos Nadal (University of the Balearic Islands).

One of the most interesting aspects of this project is that work does not finish with cultural activities. In spite of that, there will be a previous and final evaluation of cognitive functions such as attention, motivation, self-esteem and stress so as to obtain decisive markers that enable valuing and implementing this suggestion.

With regards to adolescents, it is expected the carrying out of a survey on cultural consumption habits, and, one year later, another online survey will be carried out in order to see if there has been any change in leisure and cultural consumption habits.

The setting up of this programme has been possible thanks to the General Foundation of the UV and the implication of a great number of entities: Caixa Popular, Per Amor a l’Art Foundation, Antonia Mir Foundation, Berklee College of Music o fValencia, the Faculty of Psychology of the UV (Master’s Degree in Drug Dependence: Research, Treatment and Drug Pathologies), the Professional School of Music of Valencia, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Associació ÀMBIT, Fundación por la Justicia, IVAJ (Generalitat Jove) and the public schools Cervantes, Dr. Oloriz, Primer Marqués del Turia, Mestalla and Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados.