Availability and access to post-conflict mental health services are scarce within many areas of Colombia  Models of post-conflict recovery are currently anchored to Western models of treatment and carewith only minor adjustments to fit into 'local' realities. These often underestimate material contexts that support management of adversity and promote long-term well-being.  Findings suggest the importance of political and cultural contexts (primarily family) to mental health recovery in Colombia, the former which is largely overlooked in recovery paradigms  We suggest the value of interventions that develop community mental health competencies to promote development of socio-political resources in communities.

In the context of the 2016 Peace Agreement signed between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo), several challenges for society and academia have emerged: (1) overcoming the gap between the rural and urban settings, which has been one of the roots of the Colombian armed conflict, and (2) training psychologists and transforming traditional educational practices, which have not been designed to fulfill community needs in a post-conflict setting. One of the strategies from academia to overcome these difficulties is to create alliances with rural communities where students learn key competences to foster a horizontal approach while actively working with the community. In the region of Caquetá, Colombia, two Territorial Spaces for Training and Reincorporation (ETCR) were created in order to provide a space for former guerrilla members' reintegration to civil society. In the ETCR Héctor Ramírez, 27 students and two faculty participated in a service-learning project (2 weeks in December 2018 and two in June 2019) where they engaged in local daily practices and social projects based on the community's prioritized needs. The aim of this study was to analyze the learning process of undergraduate psychology students in this community psychology service-learning project in the context of peacebuilding in Colombia. This study is grounded in a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach and data collected include reflective narratives and video diaries by students before and during the course, and two focus groups after the experience. Findings suggest that students who participated in the experience are in the process of developing cultural humility, through affective understandings and the consolidation of communities of practice that include the former guerrilla members and their knowledges. Preparing psychologists to lead peacebuilding and reconciliation processes is of importance to the field because the professional competencies gained in this context surpass the professional practice as they become part of the students' abilities as citizens. The social impact is twofold: the students learn to create partnerships where purposes are co-constructed and trust-based, while the community takes the lead of their processes creating alliances with an academia that recognizes their knowledge and practices.

RESUMEN: La propuesta del articulo es analizar la diversidad sexual y la homofobia en el medio educativo portugués, a través del estudio comparado resultante del proyecto "Sexualidades Juventudes e Gravidez Adolescente a Noroeste de Portugal" con los datos del informe sobre homofobia y transfobia del Observatorio de Educación LGBT. La metodología utilizada fue estudio cualitativo en el primero y cuantitativo en el segundo. De ambos trabajos se llega a la conclusión que la mayoría de los jóvenes muestra una actitud desfavorable hacia las personas LGBT, desinformación acerca de la diversidad sexual, acompañada por una alta difusión de mitos y estereotipos, los cuales resultan en actitudes homofóbicas y sexistas. La escuela sigue siendo uno de los lugares privilegiados en la construcción de la identidad, pero que no está preparada para enfrentarse a la problemática de la diversidad sexual educar en el respeto a la diversidad afectivo-sexual es tarea de todas y todos.

Colombia is one of the countries where corporal punishment (CP) is not yet banned. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of CP in Colombia with respect to prevalence, severity and chronicity. We used the Spanish version of the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale to assess 853 parental reports on the use of CP against their children in the four major cities of the country: Barranquilla, Bogotá, Medellin and Cali. Analyses of variances and logistic regressions were performed. Socio-demographic variables that are predictors of the use of CP are parental age, the number of children in the household and age of the children. The results indicated a high rate of prevalence (77%) but low levels of severity and chronicity, as reported by Colombian parents. Our findings suggest that CP is a normalised practice, which might be linked to direct or indirect exposure to the long-lasting armed conflict (more than 50 years) that the country endured. Recommendations for social policies are presented, particularly the design and implementation of locally relevant interventions for the prevention of this practice.

For over 60 years, Colombia has endured violent civil conflict forcibly displacing more than 8 million people. Recent efforts have begun to explore mental health consequences of these contexts, with an emphasis on national surveys. To date few Colombian studies explore mental health and well-being from a lived experience perspective. Those that do, overlook processes that enable survival. In response to this gap, we conducted a life history study of seven internally displaced Colombian women in the Cundinamarca department, analysing 18 interview sessions and 36 hours of transcripts. A thematic network analysis, informed by Latin-American perspectives on gender and critical resilience frameworks, explored women’s coping strategies in response to conflict-driven hardships related to mental well-being. Analysis illuminated that: (1) the gendered impacts of the armed conflict on women’s emotional well-being work through exacerbating historical gendered violence and inequality, intensifying existing emotional health challenges, and (2) coping strategies reflect women’s ability to mobilise cognitive, bodied, social, material and symbolic power and resources. Our findings highlight that the sociopolitical contexts of women’s lives are inseparable from their efforts to achieve mental well-being, and the value of deep narrative and historical work to capturing the complexity of women’s experiences within conflict settings. We suggest the importance of social interventions to support the mental health of women in conflict settings, in order to centre the social and political contexts faced by such marginalised groups within efforts to improve mental health.