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The Youth Chair of the UV hosts the 4th Conference of socio-educational support to teenagers and young people, gathering more than a hundred professionals of this field.
Last 29 May, the Youth Chair of the Universitat de València hosted the 4th Conference of socio-educational support to teenagers and young people, a meeting that gathered more than a hundred professionals, policy makers, researchers and socio-educational agents committed to the improvement of policies, programmes, and intervention practices meant for teenagers and young people.
The conference, hosted at the Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy of the Universitat de València is part of the line of work that boosts the Youth Chair to progress towards new models of support based on scientific knowledge, empirical evidence, and analysis of successful practices developed in different contexts.
The inaugural act had the participation of the Vice-rector for Innovation and Transfer of the Universitat de València –José María Montiel Company–, the general director of the IVAJ –Vicent Ripoll Gimeno–, the president of the Mancomunitat de Municipis de la Safor –Jordi Puig Muñoz–, the vice-president of the Colegio Oficial de Educadoras y Educadores Sociales of the Comunitat Valenciana –Marcos García Vidal–, and the director of the Youth Chair –Paz Viguer Seguí.
The main conference was carried out by Graeme Tiffany, one of the international figures of reference in the informal education field and community work with young people. His intervention invited the audience to reflect on the meaning of young support, and insisted in the necessity of building educational relations based on trust, closeness, presence and respect to vital processes of young people. In addition, the value of the required minimum intervention and the importance of reflecting on values that guide the educational action were highlighted.
Throughout the conference, experiences developed in different European territories were presented, particularly in Lund (Sweden), Manchester (United Kingdom), Zarautz, Terrassa, Santa Perpètua de Mogoda and Yverdon-les-Bains (Switzerland). They allowed them to share strategies, trainings, and intervention models focused on young people and their life projects.
The different contributions align with the necessity of placing teenagers and young people at the centre of the socio-educational action, strengthening closeness relations, understanding activities and programmes as tools in the service of educational processes and fostering educational ecosystems and community networks as fundamental spaces of support.
The conference concluded with an emotional “albà” dedicated to this support, performed by Raquel Simó, from the Centre de Desenvolupament Rural La Safor. This put an end to a meeting marked by reflection, professional exchange and commitment along with the improvement of opportunities and well-being of young people.
The high participation and quality of contributions consolidate this conference as a reference space for professionals and institutions that are interested in progressing towards more human, communal models of socio-educational support that are focused on necessities and potentialities of young people.
