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Health and Well-Being - Mental Health Promotion Programme at U.Porto

As a metaphor for adaptability to challenges and crises, the BAMBOO is the symbol of RESILIENCE in Japanese culture, because in the face of a storm, the plant shakes in the wind but doesn't break.

Boost, Meet & Bloom at University of Porto

As a metaphor for adaptability to challenges and crises, the BAMBOO is the symbol of RESILIENCE in Japanese culture, because in the face of a storm, the plant shakes in the wind but doesn't break. Taking this perspective as a soft skill, emotional resilience is the ability to recover after adversity, trauma, or pressure, with flexibility and the capacity to evolve. In other words, in the face of experiences, it allows us to learn from mistakes, look for alternatives, and generate resources and solutions along the way at the University of Porto that can be applied throughout life.

Entering higher education is a particularly demanding period with several changes and challenges. As an agent promoting health, it is up to the University to ensure a successful transition and adaptation to the university context. In this way, we seek to create conditions that facilitate equity and inclusion, with a view to the academic integration, academic success, and all-round development of our students, which are crucial for promoting health and well-being, both by mobilizing internal human resources and by establishing partnerships and cooperation protocols, boosting the sense of belonging within the academic community.

This perspective gave rise to the Mental Health Promotion in Higher Education project, resulting from the BAMBU metaphor applied to UP: "BAMBUP - BOOST, MEET & BLOOM AT resulting fromUNIVERSITY OF PORTO". It aims to make the transition from a remedial perspective, focusing only on reducing the psychopathology already in place, to a preventive and interdisciplinary approach of the Stepped Care Model, facilitating access to mental health resources and psychological resilience, which prevents the development of mental disorders. It involves implementing measures for inclusion and equal opportunities, overcoming weaknesses, and not giving up on the goal. BAMBUP is the result of listening to the needs and valuing student associations and the Porto Academic Federation (FAP) as key agents in the co-construction of the plan of activities to promote quality health, identifying association leaders and students as stakeholders, acting as interlocutors with the academic community, from the design phase of the activities to their implementation and evaluation.

In terms of the general goal, it aims to promote psychological resilience and mental health literacy in higher education students, foster networking and peer involvement, prevent psychopathology, and intervene at a psychotherapeutic level, based on training intra- and interpersonal soft skills conducive to adaptive functioning, using an interdisciplinary team.

The specific goals are to develop emotional intelligence by training self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills, deconstruct the stigma associated with mental illness, facilitate the proactive search for psychological intervention, promote the socio-emotional adaptation of displaced and/or resident students, prevent academic dropout and foster problem-solving, self-efficacy, and goal orientation.

According to the guidelines issued by the Portuguese Technical Commission (Gago et al., 2023), mental health and well-being promotion services in higher education institutions should be organized according to five levels of referral and intervention:

  • Level 1: Health promotion, prevention of mental illness, and signposting (absence of referral): corresponding to the first and second steps of the model, which presupposes proposals for the prevention and promotion of mental health and well-being, based on mental health literacy programs and self-care proposals, mentoring and tutoring programs, peer support and psycho-pedagogical support;
  • Level 2: Adjustment and adaptation reactions (absence of referral or referral by peers and/or other services/institutional structures): corresponding to the third and fourth steps of the model, which postulates online brief interventions or single session interventions, as well as group interventions to promote skills and self-help workshops;
  • Level 3: Common mental disorders (referral by a health professional, and/or referral by a psychology, psychiatry, or general and family medicine professional) and
  • Level 4: Identification and intervention in risk situations (referral by psychology, psychiatry, and general and family medicine professionals); corresponding to the fifth, sixth, and seventh steps of the model, which includes individual and group psychotherapeutic interventions, as well as medical interventions;
  • Level 5: serious mental disorders and/or high risk (referral by a medical professional from the institution to the Local Mental Health Services, Emergency Service, Primary Health Care, DICAD Treatment Teams, or another external health service): corresponding to the eighth step of the model, which involves referral to local mental health units.

This program is operationalized along three strategic axes, of increasing intensity and referencing, according to the need for intervention identified. Mental health can thus be conceptualized along a continuum, with three main dimensions from a bottom-up perspective, from mental well-being, through psychological distress to mental illness, which requires the adaptation of differentiated responses by the Mental Health and Wellbeing Services of the University of Porto. This application proposal aims to define and transversalise healthy, sustainable, inclusive, and accessible policies that reinforce its action in promoting mental health.


Three strategic pillars for transversal actions in mental health:

  1. BOOST - It boosts soft skills associated with mental health and refers to the promotion of psychological well-being and active coping strategies that include training in SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, SELF-REGULATION, AND MOTIVATION.
  2. MEET - Focuses on social connection and includes EMPATHY and SOCIAL SKILLS. It aims to promote peer relationships through welcoming dynamics and social and academic integration. It focuses on a culture of solidarity, and sharing experiences to build social support.
  3. BLOOM - Encourages PROACTIVITY IN SEEKING SPECIALISED PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT and COMBATING THE STYGMA associated with mental illness, to share and validate needs, find meaning in life, and plan lasting and sustainable changes.

With this in mind, the program involves the three strategic axes that form the acronym BAMBUP: Boost, Meet & Bloom at the University of Porto, to harmonise the responses in the Organic Units with well-defined milestones that include the active involvement of students in the definition, execution, and promotion of the program, in conjunction with the SSMBE. Based on the stepped care model in mental health applied to higher education institutions, the BAMBUP project aims to make the transition from remediation to the full development of human potential, with a focus on prevention, promotion, and literacy in mental health and self-care. Thus, the focus is not just on rehabilitating the functioning of university students with psychopathology, but on health promotion and disease prevention, based on evidence-tested soft skills programs and the improvement of academic and social environments, conducive to the flourishing and adoption of healthy lifestyles, based on health literacy and resilience. At the same time, to develop social resources to share ideas with groups and motivate each other, in line with the Directorate-General for Health and the Academic Federation of Porto, in the concerted plan "Quality Health: Commitment to Higher Education" (May 2023), in support of the evolution of these health services for university students. Within this framework, the project is part of the broader U.PORTO 2030 strategic plan, which prioritizes articulated mental health responses in a university context, continuing the work carried out so far, in line with the National Mental Health Plan.


Modelo Stepped Care do Programa ACCES para a U.Porto

Bambup_ModeloSteppedCare


  • BOOST: AXIS 1 - integrates the first step of level 1, of a universal nature, with proposals for the prevention and promotion of mental health and well-being, based on mental health literacy and self-care programs. The development of these responses has proven to be effective, in that they promote self-knowledge and encourage young people to seek help, namely the organization of mental health literacy rubrics, posters, and stickers with student involvement in the campaigns (1.1 Be Kind to your Mind), holding workshops and webinars with interactive dissemination of the action plan and its timetable to student associations focused on health and well-being as well as vocational and career development (1.2 UPSKILLS), making the range of services and activities available online on an easy-to-consult platform that aggregates responses from the student community (1.3 AtivaMente) and mapping students' mental health through the 1.4. Mental Health Observatory with an impact on the design of informed practices and effective institutional policies.
  • MEET: AXIS 2 - includes step 2 of level 1 and steps 3 and 4 of level 2, which includes a 2.1 Welcome toolkit and webinar dedicated to the challenges and opportunities of entering higher education, the promotion of sporting, cultural, and recreational activities (2.2 Healthy Campus), student volunteering projects (2.3 UPORTO Solidária), peer tutoring programs and psycho-pedagogical support (2.4 Peer Study Sessions), online (2.5 PSICON) and single session brief interventions, as well as group interventions to promote psychological resilience skills (2.6 BE RESI) which include the sub-activities of the Risks & Challenges Programme, as well as psychological first aid signaling skills (Recognise, Respond and Refer). Peer support programs have been implemented particularly in school contexts, with very promising results, particularly in situations promoting integration in the academic context and reducing stigma and discrimination. Single intervention sessions have been proposed for recognition as psychotherapy and their effectiveness has been proven, particularly in situations of mild symptoms, specifically in situations of depression, anxiety, and malaise.
  • BLOOM: AXIS 3 - covers levels 3, 4, and 5, from steps 5 to 8, from training health professionals to assess and better intervene (activity 3.1 Train - Assess - Intervene), to 3.2 Group and Individual Psychotherapeutic Intervention, to articulation with 3.3. Medical Intervention and Referral to local mental health services and how to act in cases of 3.4 Post-Intervention. Mental health services are made available for students at high risk from a psychopathological point of view by suggesting psychotherapeutic intervention in higher education for common mental disorders, risk situations, and referral to specialized community services in cases of very serious mental disorders or high risk.

Find out about the activities of the BAMBUP Programme for 2024 in the following areas:

  • UP SKILLS
  • BE RESI and Risks & Challenges Programme
  • Group Psychotherapeutic Interventions