CIESAL researchers win international competition to develop mental health literacy programme

7/03/2026

As part of a collaborative project between the Universidad de Valparaíso and the Mexican municipality of Atizapán de Zaragoza, which has been awarded a grant from the 2025 Mexico-Chile Joint Cooperation Fund, researchers from CIESAL will develop a pioneering mental health literacy programme for teachers. CIESAL’s deputy director, Dr Rubén Alvarado, is leading the initiative, supported by CIESAL researcher Dr Fanny Leyton and María Paz Martínez, an academic and social worker from the UV School of Medicine.

Evidence suggests that, in our country — and the situation in Mexico is very similar — 22.5% of children and adolescents have experienced a mental health disorder in the last year, yet very few have received a diagnosis or treatment. This has created a need for special programmes to identify children and adolescents with these issues.

In line with this, the Universidad de Valparaíso team has implemented the ‘Social-mente’ programme, which was piloted in Chilean schools predominantly attended by children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The programme provides teachers and educational staff with a training model based on mental health literacy for children and adolescents, with the overarching goal of promoting their well-being. The programme also aims to identify those with mental health issues, offering them support and putting them in touch with healthcare services where they can receive professional care.

With the support of an educational platform, manuals, videos, printed materials and other resources, the aim is to train over 7,000 teachers from 532 educational institutions in the municipality of Atizapán de Zaragoza. This will contribute to the well-being and mental health of the more than 132,000 children and teenagers living in the area. Building on a successful initiative already implemented by the same team of researchers in the Valparaíso and Los Lagos regions — which achieved a high level of acceptance and satisfaction among teachers — it is hoped that this initiative will be replicated in other parts of Chile.