LessSugar4Kids aims to address the problem of excessive sugar intake in Portuguese children by examining the underlying individual (e.g., child's food preferences and perceptions) and contextual (e.g., parents'/teachers' attitudes towards sugar intake) determinants. It is critical to combine the parents, teachers', and children's perspectives to attain this goal.

Several studies have shown evidences of psychological suffering among the younger generations and in particular in university students. The context of the pandemia COVID-19 has generated many more challenges, with increased impacts on this group. The resilient@uni project brings together a group of psychologists from different specialty fields (e.g., social, educational and clinical psychology) to explore the mental and physical health of this population, identifying potential risk and protective factors, at different levels, from intra-individual variables to social contexts. These results are aimed to inform appropriate intervention programs and policies to tackle this issue. This project was conducted in collaboration with students: Catarina Caseiro Guilherme Manica Joana Maciel Ricardo Marques Joana de Moraes

 The GRIT project focuses on fostering educational equity in urban educational settings. It addresses two main target groups: (1) indirectly: urban students threatened by early school leaving, and (2) directly: in-service educational professionals which are involved in teaching in urban settings. This project chooses to focus on the matter of early school leaving since urban educational systems are particularly vulnerable to problems associated with early school leaving. This project aims at developing a growth mindset for teachers' and teams of educational professionals in urban settings, and at enabling teachers to develop their students' growth mindset. The GRIT-project will design (a) a toolkit for teachers to practice growth mindset in order to develop their students' growth, (b) a guideline (protocol) for teachers to increase students’ resilience, (c) a hand-on training for teams of educators to learn this pedagogical & innovative approach, (d) a guideline (protocol) to train teams of educational professionals how to implement the 'growth mindset approach', and (e) an e-book for different stakeholders involved in the struggle against ESL. Through concrete experimentations in 5 European countries gathering different background and with partners addressing different kind of educators, the GRIT project will allow to enhance this innovative and  "bottom-up approach" among these key actors to struggle against Early School Leaving. Joana Alexandre (an assistant professor at ISCTE-IUL and a full member at CIS-IUL), Cecília Aguiar (an assistant professor at ISCTE-IUL and a senior researcher at CIS-IUL), Lígia Monteiro (an assistant professor at ISCTE-IUL), Teresa Seabra (a senior lecturer in Sociology of Education), and Inês Alves (a research assistant) are part of the GRIT project 

 Building upon an earlier successful Flemish project (Kleuterblog, KULeuven, Sept. 2014-Aug. 2016) that resulted in a popular blog platform about research and innovation in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), BECERID (Erasmus + KA2) aims to support both teachers and teacher educators to adopt innovative practices to deal with the topic of diversity in the classroom. The project will launch a blog in each partner country (the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland) on a diversity and social inclusion in ECEC for teacher educators of ECEC teachers and ECEC teachers to increase their knowledge of research-based insights, awareness of social inclusion, and positive attitude towards research and innovation. A European blog platform will be set up in English which serves as an exchange platform between the national blogs.      The messages on the blogs will be translated to social media platforms that ECEC teachers already use for their own professionalization (e.g. Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter) to interact with them and share insights and reflections about research and innovation. The project contributes to high quality ECEC by strengthening the learning community of teachers, teacher educators, and other stakeholders who will gain a better insight into research-based practices and innovations to support disadvantaged and diverse children.      The key person involved in the project from ISCTE-IUL is Cecília Aguiar, a full member researcher at CIS and assistant professor at Department of Social and Organizational Psychology. Tânia Boavida, a full member at CIS, and two doctoral students, Nadine Correia and Margarida Fialho, are also the part of the BECERID team.  

The Kit@ project is to create the innovative solutions for the development of media pedagogical competences using ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and the acquisition of digital skills of the professionals in child daycare centers and comparable institutions, especially in rural regions. The project responds to the fact that interacting with the Internet has become a part of the children’s everyday life. The project is focusing on rural areas which lack specialized staff, and have poor pedagogical material and consequently information technology conditions. A direct target group are the nursery school teachers in the children’s daycare centers and similar institutions as well as professional actors or institutions active in the field of early childhood education. The teaching of knowledge aims at applying innovative methods and pedagogical approaches to educate children how to use digital media.        The key person involved in the project is Cecília Aguiar, a full member researcher at CIS and assistant professor at Department of Social and Organizational Psychology Other CIS-IUL members, Lígia Monteiro, Tânia Boavida, and Catarina Araújo, are involved in the Kit@ project.

Infant and toddler protection from domestic violence constitutes a priority European public health issue. Domestic violence against this population is rarely prevented or diagnosed before hospitalization, as this population has limited access to other than family social groups. Even in hospitals, this particular form of violence against infants and toddlers is rarely recognized. The present project attempts to increase the effectiveness of EU health services in relation to prevention and early diagnosis of infant and toddler abuse and neglect. For this purpose, a diagnostic protocol tackling peculiarities concerning specifically this age-group, and informed by research-based evidence, will be developed. The diagnostic protocol will be developed in such a way, so that it is applicable to all EU partner countries, and the project's proposal is to be implemented in infant and toddler routine health exams. That is because most of the families in EU countries follow nationally specified health exams program during the first years of their child's life and, thus, they become more easily accessible to health professionals' assessment. In order for this diagnostic protocol to be developed, pre-existing diagnostic protocols in use in EU countries, and relevant research evidence, will be gathered and evaluated; in addition, the diagnostic criteria of DC: 0-3 Abusive Relationship Disorder (Zero to Three, 2005) will be adjusted for use in partner countries' populations and they will be piloted in a sample from the general population. Based on the above preparatory work, the main diagnostic protocol will be built and piloted in all partner countries. As soon as the diagnostic protocol is ready, each National partner will train health professionals working in public child welfare clinics on how to apply the diagnostic protocol in the context of her/his everyday clinical practice with infant, toddlers and their families. Health professionals, who will apply the diagnostic protocol...