University Ramon Llull, Spain

Child and adolescent development: risks and resources

In this symposium a reflection, from different points of view, will be contemplated on how children´s and adolescent´s personal and sociocultural context has an impact on the development of their emotional abilities and, by extension, of their abilities as social beings. The ultimate purpose of the symposium is to contribute to the proposal of strategies and resources to encourage emotional well-being even in complicated and/or socially risky situations. For a child to be able to learn to self-regulate emotionally and develop the emotional and social resources that strengthen their psychological well-being, they need a balance between risk and resistance factors in their immediate surroundings, from a biological as well as from a psychological or sociocultural point of view. Summing up, in this symposium we will be presenting four presentations with which we will clearly illustrate with examples how biological, psychological and sociocultural processes should develop harmoniously in children´s upbringing and strategies and resources will be provided to encourage emotional and social well-being during infancy.

Meritxell Pacheco Pérez has a Ph.D. in Psychology and she is a psychotherapist. Professor at the Blanquerna Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sports Sciences FPCEE, at the University Ramon Llull. Since the start of her professional career she has dedicated herself to training, from a constructive-narrative positioning, professionals that work in the field of child and family studies, and in the last decade she has worked specifically in intervention with adoptive families. Co-coordinator of the Inter-university Master in Adoption and Fostering: Multidisciplinary Intervention (Blanquerna Faculty of Psychology, University Ramon Llull, URL; University Pontificia Comillas). She carries out research and publishes mainly in the field of adoption and fostering affiliation as well as on the development of the psychotherapeutic process.