Malaga launches free initiatives to support young people's emotional wellbeing

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The city council's BIEM initiative includes activities and workshops in secondary schools and others such as Psychological Café

Wednesday, 11 March 2026, 15:39

Malaga city council is launching a new free emotional wellbeing service for teenagers and young people between the ages of 14 and 35. The BIEM initiative includes socio-educational interventions in secondary schools in the city that request. These range from workshops such as 'Creando conexiones' ('Creating Connections') , 'Coaching Juvenil' ('Youth Coaching') sessions and the popular Café Psicológico that La Caja Blanca has been offering since last year.

This new service, which will benefit around 3,000 young people in Malaga, aims to provide adolescents and young people with tools to improve their emotional wellbeing. The aim is to prevent and combat certain behaviours that can lead to loneliness, isolation, social pressure, bullying or cyberbullying.

The activities will be free of charge, all hosted in safe spaces where young people can feel an integral part, express what is happening to them and build healthy relationships that protect their wellbeing.

The city council will provide timetables and logistics to the schools that request them. It will also publish the timetable, locations and application requirements for Café Psicológico sessions on the youth department's website (www.juventud.malaga.eu) and social media profiles.

Activities

- Café Psicológico is a group space where young people can talk openly about emotional health while sharing a coffee and a snack in an intimate and non-judgmental environment. Its aim is to normalise talking about everyday situations that can cause discomfort, to break the silence that often surrounds problems such as anxiety and to generate peer support. Sometimes, discovering that others feel the same way is the first step towards reducing loneliness and regaining balance. It includes six three-hour sessions, with 1,200 places available.

- 'Creando conexiones' ('Creating Connections') is a group activity aimed at fostering healthy bonds, authentic communication and trust-based relationships. The aim is to prevent isolation and strengthen belonging as a direct way to reduce risks associated with anxiety, bullying and emotional disconnection, responding to a reality of young people who are digitally hyper-connected but increasingly lonely in real life. It includes seven three-hour sessions, with a total of 175 places.

- 'Coaching Juvenil' ('Youth Coaching') offers individual and confidential support for young people who need their own space to understand what is happening to them and find tools to deal with it in a healthy way. This service focuses on emotional wellbeing, the strengthening of self-esteem, the appropriate management of emotions and responsible decision-making. It provides close and professional support that allows for preventive intervention. It includes 14 one-hour individual sessions, complementary to the educational work, which will be developed at the request of the secondary schools, adapting to the specific needs of each centre and each young person.

- Socio-educational intervention in complex classrooms: This service acts directly in schools where situations of conflict, harassment or deterioration of coexistence may arise. It begins with a general workshop on coexistence that analyses the classrooms and its unique needs. From there, the organisers will develop more specific interventions, individual accompaniment or educational mediation, always adapting to each situation. It includes 75 two-hour workshops, with 2,250 spaces available.

These activities complement the youth department's other initiatives such as the workshops on anger management,the risks of mobile phone addiction, the prevention of addiction to harmful substances (vapers and energy drinks), bullying prevention, emotional management, conflict resolution and peer violence.