Talent Week at the Princess of Girona Foundation (FPG) was a week filled with conversations with professionals who work every day to strengthen the teaching profession.

Some questions seem uncomfortable until someone says them out loud. This time, the elephant in the room was: who takes care of those who educate?

Rather than remaining an unanswered question, it sparked a rich conversation from multiple perspectives, filled with practical examples and real experiences.

One starting point was both revealing and concerning: 6 out of 10 young people report having experienced a mental health issue in the past year. If teachers are their primary role models, and often they are, supporting those who educate is not simply a matter of “human resources.” It is a prerequisite for the education system to function.

Teacher wellbeing as the starting point

It was particularly insightful to hear Sandra Camos (FPG) and Cristina Gómez, CSR Director at Zürich, bring attention to something few organizations openly acknowledge: teacher wellbeing is the foundation of the educational ecosystem, not an optional extra.

The Zürich Foundation, whose work focuses on young people, reached an inevitable conclusion: to effectively support young people, we must first support those who guide them. This understanding gave rise to a range of joint initiatives with FPG and other organizations aimed at fostering wellbeing as a driver of the holistic development of both teachers and students.

As one young teacher remarked, when a teacher says, “They never taught me this at university,” they are rarely talking about teaching methods. They are talking about socio-emotional management. About how to support a student in crisis without becoming overwhelmed themselves. About how to support others when they themselves need support.

Programs already working inside schools

Several of the programs presented share a common principle: they do not wait for problems to reach healthcare services. They go directly into educational settings.

Henka Program (Sant Joan de Déu Hospital + Z Zurich Foundation)

Henka focuses on developing socio-emotional skills to foster resilience. Its approach is highly practical: teachers are trained so they can bring these tools directly into the classroom.

Psychologist Mari Carmen Grau De La Fuente leads this work alongside María Mayoral Aragón (La Paz University Hospital), providing a wide range of science-based resources designed to promote emotional wellbeing.

Z-SHAKE Program (Junior Achievement + Z Zurich Foundation)

With a century-long history behind the organization, this program works on self-awareness and self-regulation among young people.

Coordinated by Inés Bertrand Muiños, Z-SHAKE is not built on trends, it is built on accumulated evidence. “I Am My Future” is one example of its commitment to supporting young people as they navigate their personal and professional development.

UNICEF

Ignacio Martínez Latorre highlighted a significant challenge: although schools are legally required to appoint a wellbeing coordinator, the role still lacks clearly defined responsibilities and sufficient tools.

UNICEF’s recommendation is straightforward: 23 hours per week for every 1,000 students are needed to effectively identify and support wellbeing needs. A ratio that requires methodology, not improvisation.

Their initiative “Caring for Those Who Care” offers one example of how this challenge can be addressed.

The voices of those in the classroom every day

One of the most engaging conversations featured Mª Isabel Luis and Sonia Rodríguez Cano from the Faculty of Education at the University of Burgos, who presented the new Framework for Professional Teaching Competencies (MCPD) for both initial and ongoing teacher training.

The area focused on comprehensive socio-educational action, and particularly Competency 4, centered on the holistic development and wellbeing of both teachers and students, recognizes that socio-emotional competencies are not peripheral to teaching. They are central to the profession.

Legislation may still be catching up, but the framework is already in place.

Cristina Valle, a young teacher participating in FPG’s Generación Docentes program, was direct in her assessment: teachers need practical activities and real tools.

Throughout her university education, she had only one course focused on socio-emotional competencies. It was largely theoretical and never approached as a cross-cutting element of teacher preparation.

Guillermo Sánchez, principal of IES Ramón y Cajal in Zaragoza, winner of the Princess of Girona School of the Year Award 2021, shared how they address these challenges in practice, without waiting for external solutions.

They meet weekly. They actively cultivate kindness, care, and positive relationships.

The teachers’ lounge is not simply a place people pass through. It is a multidisciplinary gathering space where people connect, learn, laugh, and sometimes cry together.

“We eat a lot because someone is always bringing something to celebrate.”

Simple. Human. And remarkably effective.

The day concluded with the presentation of the Inspiring Teacher Award to Silvia Nadal.

Her students described her as “the best teacher in the whole world,” “someone who inspires me to keep going,” and “someone who teaches from the heart.”

She begins every morning by greeting her students with “good morning, with joy and energy.”

Cognitive development is not the whole story.

As she reflected while accepting the award, a great teacher knows how to bring out the best in every student, and has the socio-emotional competencies needed to do so.

What can technology contribute to this challenge?

We know that supporting those who teach is probably one of the most impactful educational investments we can make and at the same time, one of the most overlooked.

It is difficult to measure, it rarely fits into a headline, and it is seldom visible in budgets.

Yet it supports everything else.

At Human AI Tech, together with the Princess of Girona Foundation and other institutions, we are working on teacher professional development to contribute our part through socio-emotional competencies.

We have mapped the 12 key competencies of the Framework for Professional Teaching Competencies (MCPD) against the 35 socio-emotional competencies we assess.

Seven of them show a high or very high relationship with the dimensions we evaluate and develop—without questionnaires, without self-perception or social desirability biases, in seconds, and with scientific validation.

Technology will not solve the structural challenges facing one of the most important professions in the world.

What it can do—and what we strive to achieve every day—is give teachers, counsellors, and school leadership teams back the time and information they need to look at each person with greater care and fewer assumptions.

Nothing more. And nothing less.