Mental Health in Young People (Mind over Matter) Erasmus Project

Project Title

Mental Health in Young People (Mind over Matter)

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Health and wellbeing; Social dialogue

Project Summary

Our project came about following a survey carried out by the local Youth Trust on the Isle of Wight into the trends among young people concerning their mental health and their awareness of the support organisations available to them. The alarming results identified that over half those surveyed had at some time received a threatening or nasty message via social media. Furthermore, over a quarter did not feel comfortable with their gender and three-quarters had witnessed bullying with 58% having been bullied. Almost a third had self-harmed and a further 40% had considered it. A third had a poor image of themselves and did not feel positive about the future while over a quarter had sought help from medical professionals. Awareness of where to go for help was low. This inspired further research into this increasing issue.

In the survey, teachers were identified as the people students would turn to if they could not find support among their families. Therefore we decided that teacher training had to be an essential element of our project in order to equip teachers and support staff with the necessary skills to support their students. We hope this will make students with mental health issues feel more involved in college like and in turn will prevent early leaving and under achievement. We have also recognised that students’ peers have a role to play in supporting each other and students with problems will sometimes prefer to open up to them rather than an adult or person in authority. Therefore we aim to train students to become mental health ambassadors to support their peers.

Our 6 objectives are:

-Identify the key triggers for mental health issues in young people aged 15+
-Recognise how and why these issues manifest themselves in young people.
-Compare data concerning the triggers and how they manifest themselves across partner institutions.
-Equip teachers and other school and college staff with the tools to recognise vulnerable students and advise them how and when to seek help.
-Develop student ambassadors to work with their peers to help them to recognise the issues and challenges that face them and discover the mechanisms which might help them to address these challenges the best.
-Develop a range of materials and resources for teachers, staff and students to use to help young people overcome these issues and early leaving.

We are 6 partners from the UK, Norway, Greece, Estonia, France and Italy and our project begins with research into national and local data available on mental health issues among young people and support organisations available which we will then compare to gain a Europe-wide picture. Partners will survey 50-100 students to identify a pilot group of 5-10 students with issues and potentially at risk of early leaving and/or underachievement. They will then select 2 staff per school/college to undergo training in mental health issues. These staff will train a minimum further 3 staff in their institution and these will work with the pilot group to provide guidance and support. In year 2 each partner will select 10 student ambassadors who will receive similar training in order to work with a second pilot group. They will also develop resources to augment this support including a helpline, videos to be shared on social media and a performance. A further group of 10 students comprised of ambassadors and members of the pilot group will attend a Mind over Matter event in Italy where they will share their findings and perfect their resources. Ultimately our findings and resources will be shared via an ebook and our eTwinning platform.

We envisage that our project will impact upon young people with mental health issues by creating a close network of staff and students they trust who can provide help. This will further impact upon staff’s and students’ confidence to support people with mental health issues both in school/college and outside. We foresee that this project might prevent some students from leaving education early and underachieving. In the longer term the findings will be shared with other educational establishments globally and partners will be able to continue to train other staff locally and nationally thus raising the profile of their institution. This could include employer training, thus impacting on local businesses making them more tolerant towards applicants and employees with mental health issues and increasing productivity.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 151376 Eur

Project Coordinator

The Isle of Wight College & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Gausdal videregående skole, Pierre de Coubertin
• Geniko Lykeio Arfaron
• I.I.S. “P. SRAFFA”
• LYCEE CONDORCET
• Tallinna Polütehnikum