Yesterday, on World Mental Health Day, the Portuguese Catholic University reinforced its commitment to students through UCP2 Mental Health. The programme will be implemented in Braga.

The Braga campus is one of four campuses of the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) that will be covered by UCP2 Mental Health, an Integrated System of Activities and Services for the Promotion of Mental Health and Well-being. The announcement was made yesterday, World Mental Health Day, as a way for UCP to reinforce its commitment to students.

In addition to Braga, UCP2 Mental Health will cover the campuses of Lisbon, Porto, and Viseu, based on three pillars: promotion and prevention, which aims to increase knowledge of mental health, develop self-care and psychological first aid strategies, promote soft skills and stress management skills, contributing to positive body image and academic burnout, always promoting self-care strategies and first aid behaviours in the prevention and early identification of mental health problems and access to timely help; psychological support focused on anxiety, depression and stress, following defined procedures, including a screening system; and referral and guidance, which enable the referral of more serious cases or those that go beyond the scope of the psychology consultation, through a network of partner health institutions.

In these three areas, UCP2 Mental Health includes several initiatives, notably a series of workshops on mental health literacy and psychological first aid, to be held throughout the academic year, addressing topics such as academic anxiety and panic attacks.

UCP2 Be, a soft skills development programme aimed at first-year students, is also being implemented. Currently in its pilot phase in Lisbon and Porto, it is expected to become a common curriculum unit for all courses at Católica.

There are also plans for a course on academic stress management, a free online training programme developed in partnership with the School of Life Skills of the Psychology Association of the University of Minho, and psychology consultations through the psychology consultation services integrated into the different campuses.

The UCP2 Mental Health 24h platform will also be implemented, a digital platform in the final stages of development to facilitate access to psychological support requests, screening, assessment and intervention, as well as partnership protocols with entities such as Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto, Casa de Saúde da Boavista, Associação Recovery IPSS, Projeto Homem and JS Clínica Médica, to refer cases of serious or at-risk mental disorders.

It also has a process for monitoring mental health and assessing the impact of interventions, conducted by a team that includes researchers from the Centre for Research on Human Development.