In recent years, the modern world puts the well-being and mental health of each of us to the test, not to mention the youngest. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, every seventh child was directly affected by social isolation, and over 1.6 billion children lost their access to education permanently or temporarily. Disruption of routine, education, recreation, and concerns about family income and health make many young people feel anxious and angry about their future. Download Publication – “Mental health of young people from social therapy centers in selected EU countries”
Bearing in mind these disturbing tendencies, we focused on the most isolated group, and thus at risk of social exclusion – young people from Sociotherapy Centres.
What is that?
Youth Sociotherapy Centers are intended for children and adolescents who, due to developmental disorders, learning difficulties, and social functioning disorders, are at risk of social maladjustment and require special organization of learning, methods of work, upbringing, and sociotherapy.
Together with partners from three European countries – Italy, Hungary, and Lithuania, we have created a project that focuses on mental health among young people from these Centres. The project “Mental health among young people from social therapy centers in Europe” is an important element in raising knowledge, as well as introducing modern education methods in this area among youth workers, because knowledge about this topic in social awareness is almost non-existent.
How do we plan to act?
First of all, on a large scale. Thanks to international cooperation between youth workers from the centers and activists from non-governmental organizations, we will create an opportunity to exchange experiences, and joint actions and strengthen care for mental health among teenagers. It is worth remembering that around the world, 1 in 7 children between the ages of 10 and 19 live with a diagnosed mental disorder. Nearly 46,000 teenagers commit suicide each year, making it one of the top five causes of death in this age group.
The project is carried out in cooperation with international partners from Italy – YOUth Connect, Hungary – Kontroll V, and Lithuania – Socialinis reklamas asociacija, as well as local youth mental health centers who have experience in working with groups at risk of exclusion and youth.
What have we done?
The project consisted of four elements: in the first part, the center’s employees and youth activists were trained in the field of mental health among teenagers in European countries, as well as unconventional teaching methods, which are also inseparable elements of mental health. These included, among others: psychological experiments, art-therapeutic workshops, group building activities and elements of film workshops.
All this led to building an individual lesson plan from scratch, designed by each training participant, in consultation and based on the knowledge of experts conducting the training.
Subsequently, the scenarios were used in the second phase of the project, in which all participants of the training, i.e. center staff and youth activists from NGOs, jointly conducted a series of eight full-day workshops focusing on the subject of mental health based on unconventional teaching methods in their countries. Including, among others sports classes, mindfulness workshops, non-violent communication (NVC), elements of art therapy (drawing, sculpture, etc.), as well as work with the voice or body, classes with elements of acting or music. The formula depended on the creativity of the hosts.
In the next, third stage, which was preceded by the aforementioned series of workshops, we met again, this time online, to summarize our activities together, assess their effectiveness and share impressions and comments. Thanks to this, it was possible to move to the last, fourth stage of the project, which is the culmination of previous activities.
As part of international cooperation between partners, we have created a publication summarizing our activities so far. We described the course of the project and attached example scenarios of classes with recommendations for centers in four partner countries – Poland, Lithuania, Italy, and Hungary. The publication has been translated into national languages and English, thanks to which it will gain better coverage and will be promoted in local media. It will also be sent to centers in the countries participating in the project.
