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Thursday, June 03, 2021 at 07:00

Animal Assisted Interventions to help the most vulnerable

Animal Assisted Interventions to help the most vulnerable Animal Assisted Interventions to help the most vulnerable

URJC, UJA, UNIA and the Red Cross collaborate on an interuniversity master's degree whose external internships are aimed at vulnerable women and minors in the province of Jaén. The Rey Juan Carlos University, through the Animals and Society Chair, is in charge of the research derived from the interventions.

Raúl García Hémonnet/Editor

A total of 35 people are the recipients of the internships of the Official Master's Degree in Animal Assisted Intervention (IAA) of the University of Jaén and the International University of Andalusia, in which the URJC also participates and which has the collaboration of the Red Cross .

These are women and minors at risk or in a situation of social exclusion distributed in seven working groups of the Red Cross Jaén. Some of them, both from the group of minors and women, add to this situation that of having been victims of violence. The program is a preventive and psychoeducational intervention proposal that seeks to work on Emotional Intelligence and Socio-Communicative Skills.

Specifically, the Rey Juan Carlos University develops the scientific studies derived from the interventions. As Nuria Máximo Bocanegra, professor at the URJC and director of the URJC Animals and Society Chair, comments, “the Chair puts all its knowledge into the design and analysis of the programs that are going to be developed from the training plan of these universities. , and we do it especially motivated by being a target group that needs attention, professionalism and data that support the best way to train them for a full and inclusive life". The teacher adds that, "being part of this program is a prestige not only for the Chair but also for the university, especially taking into account that it does not have training of this type and that doing so does not entail having to collaborate in its financing".

The interuniversity master's degree from the University of Jaén and the International University of Andalusia, in which the URJC collaborates, is the first of an official nature in Spain that pursues the training of professionals for the design and development of IAA programs applied to psychological fields , health, educational and leisure. In this course, the master's coordinators have designed an internship program that develops the appropriate skills of the students while benefiting vulnerable groups. It will add a total of 50 sessions and runs from the beginning of April to the end of June 2021.

The Perruneando entity, for its part, as a company specialized in IAA, develops and executes the interventions, while the Dingonatura 'Sumando Vida' Foundation participates as a sponsor.