What?! I'm not stressed!

We applied for this project to address the increasing stress levels among young people, highlighted especially by the COVID-19 pandemic. Worldwide statistics show a higher rate of stress issues among the youth compared to adults, attributed to factors such as peer conflict, bullying, financial stress, and career orientation. The pandemic has increased mental health concerns, leading to social isolation, disruption in therapeutic services, and loss of structured occupations like school and work. Social media, while providing a platform for socialisation, has also led to comparison and feelings of inadequacy among the youth. Through the work on developing knowledge management among participating organisations, youth workers, and production of intellectual outputs as resource materials for young people, we have addressed the needs of our partnership and of our target groups of youngsters with fewer opportunities to tackle this issue and mobilise youth workers to contribute to supporting young people’s mental health.

With the implementation of this project we have aimed to tackle the problem of increase of stress among young people. More specifically, we aimed to mobilise youth workers in Europe to contribute to supporting young people’s mental health. The specific objectives of the project were: - Empower youth workers for prevention and management of stress among marginalised youngsters, through development of inspiring and innovative Curriculum, LTTA and the Online course for youth workers’ training. - Empower youngsters with fewer opportunities in coping mechanisms and dealing with stress and anxiety, through innovative Toolkit with multidisciplinary approach workshops for beneficiaries. - Exchange good practices and further develop quality strategic partnership among partners from 5 European countries with different realities in regards to youth stress management and prevention.

The project activities of this project consisted of the following: • Project Management processes and activities throughout the whole project. • M1 - kick-off project meeting in Serbia hosted by CNELL • O1 - Toolkit “What?! I'm not stressed!”- lead Realization and CNELL; Produced in 6 languages. • M2 - second meeting in Italy hosted by LINK DMT • O2 – Curriculum “What?! I'm not stressed!” - lead LINK DMT and JuBuK; Produced in 6 languages. • M3 - third meeting in Germany hosted by JuBuK • O3 - Online course “What?! I'm not stressed!” - lead Wizard and OTB; Produced in 6 languages. • C1 - LTTA - Training for trainers in Croatia hosted by Realization and Wizard • E1 – National conference and workshop in Novi Sad, RS by CNELL • E2 – National conference and workshop in Modena, IT by LINK DMT • E3 – National conference and workshop in Zagreb, HR by Realization and Wizard • E4 – National conference and workshop in Essen, DE by JuBuK • E5 – International conference and workshop in Brussels, BE by OTB • M4 – Final evaluation meeting in Belgium hosted by OTB

Intellectual Outputs O1 Toolkit “What?! I'm not stressed!” - an innovative (pdf and digital) publication and resource material for youth workers, purposely developed to recognise stress and stressors and support the needed youngsters in practicing different relaxation and mindfulness techniques, from the multidisciplinary approach of psychology, social pedagogy, youth work and art (music and photography). O2 Curriculum “What?! I'm not stressed!” - a resource material for youth trainers to organise a 7-day long training course on empowering youth workers to develop alternative competences and methods of prevention and managing stress that is happening in every day face-to-face and online situations amongst youth and in youth work nowadays. The curriculum consists of detailed session designs, as well as annexes and other needed materials for easier multiplication purposes. O3 Online course “What?! I'm not stressed!” - an innovative and up-to-date digital tool / online course for relevant topics and with tools for prevention and management of stress that is happening in every day face-to-face and online situations amongst youth and in youth work nowadays. The online course allows for bigger impact of our project, as it is free and easily accessible from any community, country. The intellectual outputs are all originally produced in English, and further on translated and available also in German, Croatian, Serbian, French, and Italian. Other results of the project consist of the following: LTTA organisation and empowerment of youth workers • A total of 16 staff and youth workers participated in the Learning, Teaching, and Training Activities (LTTA), enhancing their skills in conducting training sessions for other youth workers based on the project's intellectual outputs. Intellectual Outputs (O1 Toolkit, O2 Curriculum, O3 Online Course) usage • 15 multipliers, including youth workers, volunteers, and management staff (3 from each partner country), utilised the project's intellectual outputs in their youth work activities. They engaged with at least 75 youngsters (15 per partner country) to test the effectiveness of these outputs both on a personal and organisational level. Organisation of multiplier conferences and local impact • 120 local multipliers and youth workers in 5 countries were empowered during the multiplier events. They learned about the significance of youth work in promoting the prevention and management of stress among young people. Expected results were two-fold: (1) the organisations developed publications to be used to provide quality NFE about stress management and prevention among youngsters with fewer opportunities; (2) we have also developed online course that can be used by target groups who are not able to physically attend educational activities and/or who we had no chance to work with before. Thus, our project, besides impacting our organisations and current beneficiaries of ours, allows us to reach new beneficiaries and target groups, which will further contribute to bigger impact and effectiveness of our work in our communities and Europe-wide.