Youth Centres for Mental Health of Young People Erasmus Project

Project Title

Youth Centres for Mental Health of Young People

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 : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; Quality Assurance

Project Summary

The project Youth Centres for Mental Health of Young People, identifies three key areas, namely support for youth workers, social inclusion and quality promotion in youth work. The purpose of the project is to empower youth workers with general knowledge and skills for recognizing young people in mental distress through selected priority areas, and to additionally train and provide them with information and knowledge in the field of first psycho-social assistance to young people.

Youth workers in youth centres and other NGOs working with young people are reporting an increasing number of cases of young people in mental distress. Working in this field represents a major challenge for youth work, therefore it is first and foremost important to have an initial understanding of mental distress, which consists of three parts: the past, present and future. Quality youth work is crucial when dealing with mental health, as the youth worker is a trusted person of the young person who can research the past of the young person and thus find out where he/she sees a solution or way out of the problem. In fact, conversation is still the most universal tool in helping and intervening appropriately, yet youth workers need professional guidance to identify mental health problems and provide first psychosocial assistance to young people in youth centres.
Based on the above described challenges, we decided to jointly address the topic of mental health of young people in youth centres and provide youth workers with a holistic and unified approach to solving the challenges of modern times, through implementing a strategic partnership project. As the current situation regarding the covid-19 pandemic deepens the mental distress of young people, the project is also a response to mitigate the consequences that the pandemic has brought both for the individual and for society as a whole on a global scale.

The project stems from the fact that working with young people facing mental health problems requires from the youth worker: (1) expertise, (2) appropriate methodology and (3) networking with other professionals. Based on this, through the set project goals in the first phase of the project, together with experts and youth workers, we will conduct international training for »trainers of trainers« and train youth workers from partner organizations to design protocols/approaches to mental health interventions through first psychosocial assistance and develop a model of national training for other youth workers. In the second phase, the partners will conduct national training for youth workers in their national realities and train youth workers for first psychosocial assistance and the use of protocols in practice. In the third phase of the project, we will include 1 youth center in each partner country, which together with experts and other stakeholders will participate in pilot training in the use of protocols. As part of this, we will conduct local events with experts and other stakeholders in the field of mental health in the local environments of youth centres, which will result in the establishment of a supportive local interdisciplinary networks and testing protocols in practice with young people in mental distress. All other youth workers involved will take part in the national pilot, as intervision and supervision meetings will be held with the support of experts. The national pilot implementation will focus on the reflection, adaptation and improvement of the developed protocols. The main products of the project will be a module of national training for youth workers for first psychosocial assistance to young people in mental distress and 8 protocols/approaches to mental health interventions for direct application in the practice of youth work.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 81672 Eur

Project Coordinator

ZAVOD MLADINSKA MREZA MAMA & Country: SI

Project Partners

• RED EUROPEA LOS JOVENES IMPORTAN AHORA
• MTU EESTI AVATUD NOORTEKESKUSTE UHENDUS