UCM´s functions include creation, development, transmission and criticism of science, technology and culture, the dissemination, valorization and transfer of knowledge at the service of culture, quality of life and development. economic, as well as the dissemination of knowledge and culture through university extension and continued training, which may be articulated through the establishment of relationships with other entities for the promotion and development of their institutional purposes. The Faculty of Psychology has been developing activities to defend the health, quality of life and dignity of all people with a special emphasis on human diversity in all its aspects. Its interest focuses especially on those people or groups that are most vulnerable or suffer processes of discrimination and social exclusion.
The objectives of the Chair coincide to a large extent with those of the UCM, and specifically with those of the Faculty of Psychology, in all cases a change of outlook is promoted towards people who are in a situation of vulnerability (with problems mental health, homeless, elderly, brain damage, minors at risk of exclusion) and we fight to reduce the stigma they suffer through the means of a University: research, training and social awareness, among others.
Since 1995, the UCM Mental Health and Society research group, based in the Faculty of Psychology, has been working with the objectives of conducting research and developing knowledge about the relationships between social factors and mental health. During these years the group has focused on working with vulnerable and socially excluded populations such as homeless people, older people, people with intellectual disabilities or people with serious and persistent mental disorders. It has developed various projects and contracts, among which the following can be highlighted: the evaluation of care for homeless people with mental illness (To Live in Health and Dignity Project, European Union; Constructing Understandings for Homelessness Project, European Union); has collaborated in the organization of the Counts of Homeless People in Madrid (Madrid City Council, 2006-2019); has participated in the work of the SMES Group (Mental Health Social Exclusion); He is a member of the Technical Forum on Homeless People of the Madrid City Council; has studied the role of women in situations of homeless exclusion (National R&D Plan, 2016-2019); has collaborated in the design and implementation of a system of care for older people in social isolation (Madrid City Council and Official College of Psychologists); has coordinated the drafting of the Plans for Social Care for people with serious and chronic mental illness 2003-2007 (Community of Madrid) and for Care for People with Disabilities (2004-2008) (Community of Madrid); and has participated in the European project MENTDIS65+ that carried out a study of mental health, functioning and use of services in people over 65 years of age in 6 European countries (2009-2012). The group has published more than a hundred scientific publications on the subject and has received various research awards for its work on the mental health of homeless people, people with disabilities and older people.
In recent years, the group has launched a line of research on the Stigma of mental illness and other health conditions (2005 – present) in which all its members collaborate and which has led to the present UCM-Group Chair 5 Against the Stigma in which all the members of the group are integrated, adding to their research tasks, those of training, awareness and collaborative work open to other professors at the UCM, and especially from the same Faculty, and professionals from Group 5 and the rest of the Chair’s collaborating entities.
