Youth Centres for Mental Health of Young People

Background The project addressed three key topics according to the expressed needs of youth workers: youth work support, social inclusion and promoting quality in youth work. Youth workers expressed a need for the skills necessary to work successfully with young people with mental health problems, as they lack training and competences in the field of psychosocial first aid and young people's mental health. Young people have increasingly sought contact with youth workers in youth centres during and after the epidemic, and youth workers are essential in addressing young people's mental health problems. Youth centres work in a preventive way, which is key to detecting distress and strengthening young people's mental health, taking into account the different factors that lead to problems (individual, biological, family and environmental factors). However, the lack of a systemic approach to mental health issues, the absence of intersectoral cooperation and the difficulty of accessing professional help lead young people to social exclusion. The aim of the project was to equip youth workers with general knowledge and skills to identify young people in mental distress and to equip them with knowledge in the field of psychosocial first aid. Objectives In the project, we developed a support model and equipped youth workers with skills and provided them with support to build a partnership network with professionals in the local community, to improve young people's well-being and quality of life, as well as their emotional and mental stability. Based on the designed project activities, together with the partners, we have developed and achieved the key objectives of the project: - to empower all professionals working with young people through quality training and testing of youth mental health and mental health first aid protocols; - develop awareness raising programmes and enhance the visibility of youth work by raising awareness among professionals and linking youth workers with the profession (intersectoral cooperation) and building local interdisciplinary networks. Implementation The activities carried out during the project included: - International training for 9 youth workers (3 youth workers from each partner organisation) to acquire knowledge and competences to identify mental health problems in young people and to provide first psychosocial support; - a national training model for the delivery of 3 national trainings and the involvement of 10 YW from each partner country (30 YWs in total); - develop, together with mental health professionals and YW, a supportive methodological model for youth work in the field of young people's mental health and develop 7 intervention protocols for YW for the 7 most common mental health problems, in 4 different languages; - develop an eighth protocol for the international dimension of youth work (youth exchanges, international volunteering); - 3 national pilot testing of the protocols (1 in each country, in a selected youth centre) and involve at least 8 young people and 2 YW from each youth centre; - establishment of 3 local interdisciplinary support networks (1 in each country) and involvement of experts and professional services (social services, police, health centres, community support programmes) to support YW in working with young people in mental distress. Achievements The main outcome of the project is youth workers empowered by the acquired competences in identifying mental distress in young people. The project developed three concrete results: R1 - A training module that addresses the topic of mental health in a holistic and interdisciplinary way, enabling YW to acquire theoretical knowledge (what is mental distress, mental disorder, symptoms of specific problems, types of professional interventions) and practical knowledge in the field of mental health (use of protocols in practice, experiential workshops); R2 - Protocols for first psychosocial aid for young people, which guide step by step through interventions in crisis situations. 8 protocols have been developed (depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, suicide, self-harm behaviour, attention deficit disorder, psychotic disorders). The eighth protocol defines the international dimension of youth work (youth exchanges, international volunteering); R3 - Interdisciplinary local support networks made up of youth workers, professionals (psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, social pedagogues) and professional services in the local environment (social work centres, police, health centres, community support programmes).