The councillor of the Presidency and Public Administrations and the dean of the COPIB today signed the renewal of the agreement for 2024.
The councillor of the Presidency and Public Administrations, Antònia Maria Estarellas, and the dean of the Official College of Psychology of the Balearic Islands, Francisco Javier Torres, this morning signed the renewal of the collaboration agreement between the Government of the Balearic Islands and the COPIB for the Project of psychological support for people in emergency situations for the year 2024.
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The Government increases the budget allocation for Psychological Support
This agreement, the first to be signed during the current legislature, will be valid for one year and will have a budget contribution from the CAIB of €249,180, which represents an increase of 54% in relation to the budget for 2022 and 2023. It should be borne in mind that the last agreement signed was for a period of two years and its budget was €324,000.
The aim of the Project of psychological support to people in emergency situations in the Balearic Islands is to offer help, support and professional psychological accompaniment of early attention to people who have suffered a crisis, emergency or catastrophe situation in the Balearic Islands, including the intervening teams, in order to enhance emotional well-being and achieve an adequate management of the problem to improve resilience.
The interventions of the professionals may be in person by travelling to the scene or by telephone in emergency situations such as traffic or nautical accidents, suicide attempts, accidents involving minors, explosions, fires or adverse meteorological phenomena, kidnappings, murders or situations of great social impact, among others.
The signing of this agreement provides for the provision of 10 psychology professionals in Mallorca, five in Menorca, six in Ibiza and three in Formentera, who will remain available 24 hours a day, at the request of the Emergency Service, to deal with the needs detected in a crisis, emergency or catastrophe situation.
Councillor Estarellas stated that the aim of this agreement is to ‘mitigate the consequences for those affected and enhance their emotional well-being, advise the Directorate General for Emergencies and the Interior on the psychosocial impact of the actions and reduce the level of stress of the people who intervene in the emergency’.
Estarellas added that ‘we will always ensure public safety and its achievement goes from prevention to care. For this reason, it is essential to continue with this agreement’ since, he pointed out, “the institutions have a duty to be at the side of the citizens”. In addition, he thanked ‘the psychologists for their great work, managing to support people going through difficult times’ and highlighted that in 2023, 240 activations of the service were carried out, which throughout this 2024 has already been provided on 115 occasions.
For his part, the dean of the COPIB declared that ‘today is an important day’ thanks to the fact of re-signing an agreement that began in 1998, which shows that emergency psychology professionals ‘are now fully identified and consolidated in any emergency situation’, which is why he encouraged the Government of the Balearic Islands and the COPIB to ‘continue working together in this consolidation’.