Helping University students, unemployees and employees to increase their positive psychological capital, to better adjust to academic / work context and craft their academic and career path is being a central goal in the skills training groups that I was involved, in both designing and implementing. 

Some of the projects are listed below: 

Workshops for University Students  (2009-present) 

Besides the above projects developed, regular workshops are being implemented with university students, under topics such as positive psychological capital, self-knowledge, life design, interpersonal relationships, teamwork, managing anxiety. 

Project "Invest in yourself! Increase your competitive advantage in the labor market!"

Intervention Program under the Project “Investe em ti! Ganha vantagem competitiva no mercado de trabalho!” [Invest in yourself! Increase your competitive advantage in the labor market!], aimed at increasing the competitive advantage of students in the transition and adaptation to professional life, by promoting career adaptability and the development of personal and professional skills. 

This project was developed in collaboration with the Students Association of Madeira University (Académica da Madeira), and is being financed by Erasmus +, KA3 - Support for policy reform .

Dates: 2018/2019

For more information check here. 

Related publications: 

• Oliveira, F., Lucas, C. V., Soares, L. & Martins, R. (2020). Thinking the future and developing skills for the workplace: a project with college students. Livro de Atas do X Simpósio Nacional de Investigação em Psicologia. Revista de Psicologia, 34, 1, doi: 10.17575/psicologia.v34i1.1681. 

Intervention program: "Being a better person and a better professional" 

Intervention Program “Ser + pessoa e melhor profissional” [Being a better person and a better professional”] for students of psychology, aimed at promoting intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. The program was constituted by 9 sessions (18 hours).

The topics addressed were: self-knowledge, life project construction, communication, teamwork, conflict management, decision making and creative problem solving. 

Implemented: 2016 and 2017

Micro-intervention: "Building my life project" 

Under the Project “Mexe-te” E5G – Programas Escolhas 5.ª Geração, implemented by Funchal City Hall and financed by European Social Funds / Portugal 2020, we developed and implemented the micro-intervention “Building my life project”. 

We worked with youth, not in education, in employment or in training, with the main goal of helping youth develop psychological resources and design their life projects to become more prepared, satisfied and committed in the transition to the workplace.

Related Publications:

• Soares, L., Lucas, C. V., & Oliveira, F. (2017, July). "Building my life project": Intervening with youth to promote a better insertion into the labour market. Poster session presented at the 15th European Congress of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 

Skills training for unemployees

Since 2011, I'm  having the privilege to work within a project, in collaboration with the International Medical Assistance (AMI), Delegation in Funchal, Portugal, where we monthly promote groups of skills training, with a group of unemployed people from disadvantaged contexts. 

Over the years, many were the topics addressed as parental skills, interpersonal relationships, assertive skills, self-knowledge, recognizing and managing emotions, well-being (...). 

One of the main goals of this project is to help empower these people, to gain control over their lives, by improving their sense of self-efficacy. 

Micro-intervention "Building My Capital in the Workplace"

Today's managers must find new ways of promoting healthy workplaces, the recent studies of positive psychological capital (PsyCap) have shown that it offers competitive advantages to workers and companies and can be promoted in micro-interventions.

As so, under the constructs of positive psychological capital, I designed and conducted a micro-intervention with different employees, from different companies, aimed to promote employees' self-confidence, resilience, optimism, and hope.

The efficacy of this micro-intervention and the impact in work-engagement and mental health was studied in my Master thesis. 

Related Publications:

• Lucas, C. V. (2016). A promoção do capital psicológico, work engagement e saúde mental de trabalhadores. Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas, Lisboa. [Available here] 

• Lucas, C. V., & Lopes, M. (2017, June). Leveraging work engagement and mental health: The benefits of promoting positive psychological capital. Paper presentation at the EURAM 2017 Conference, Glasgow [+].