The second graduating class of the Postgraduate Degree in Family Coaching and Guidance of the Institute for Advanced Family Studies of UIC Barcelona graduated on 5 July in the Aula Magna of the University. María Álvarez de las Asturias, ecclesiastical judge and founder of the Coincidir Institute which is dedicated to family mediation, was the patron of the graduation. She congratulated the students and welcomed them to the professional world of family training: “From now on you are no longer students, but colleagues by profession. I recommend that you work as a team, because those who provide support also need to be supported,” she advised the new graduates.

The event was chaired by the director of the Institute of Advanced  Family Studies, Montserrat Gas-Aixendri, the assistant director, Belén Zárate, and the director and coordinator of the programme, M. Pilar Lacorte and Montserrat Santigosa. Gas-Aixendri shared a few words with the graduates to thank them for their commitment and willingness to work with families: “Those of us who work in the field of the family today are countercultural; but let’s not forget that counterculture creates a new culture and that is why it needs people trained with a positive attitude, from the conviction that our proposal for the family responds to the most genuine desires of the human being to love and be loved.”

The celebration also highlighted the teaching and research work carried out by the Institute of Advanced Family Studies, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year, and ended with the traditional singing of the university anthem Gaudeamus Igitur. 

This event welcomes all new graduates to the Alumni UIC Barcelona community.