We kicked off the project “Promotion of Youth Mental Health through Awareness, Prevention & Resilience Building”, together with our partners from Tavo Europa (Lithuania), FSR (Spain)
, Iris (Poland)
, Emphasys (Cyprus)
, Atermon (the Netherlands)
, Hellas for us (Greece)
and Association Walktogether (Bulgaria)
– the coordinator of the KA2 Strategic Partnership.
From 21st until 24th of March, Association Walktogether is hosting the first Transnational Project Meeting in Sofia, with the cooperation of our associate partner the Erasmus Student Network Bulgaria (ESN) at National Student House.
During the meeting we will focus on the ensuring a common understanding of the
project’s aims, overall plan, products and time schedule, defining the methodologies on the working packages and establishing a friendship connection.
Project description:
Mental-health conditions have a significant impact on youth’s social inclusion since Mental Health Problems (MHP) like depression, stress, anxiety disorders during adolescence and young adulthood can negatively impact the development of safe and healthy relationships with peers, teachers, family and intimate partners.
Hence, by not being capable to form healthy relationships, YP with MHP lack of life skills(social and emotional skills) which eventually, negatively impact their participation in education, employment (limit employment opportunities, low work performance negatively),sense of belonging and acceptance by others.
The project aims:
– To promote social inclusion of Young People with Mental Health Problem such as anxiety, stress, depression who perceive social stigma to participate fully in the community, by encouraging YP to talk and share their feelings and emotions without the fear of embarrassment.
– To help YP to develop resilience and self-esteem in a way where they will be more capable to cope with feelings of fear, worry, depression etc.
Our target groups are:
– YOUNG PEOPLE: facing variety of mental ill health challenges which affect them (aged: 15-24 years old)
– YOUTH WORKERS: Many youth workers find it difficult to open discussions with YP on mental health issues, maybe because they are worried that the topic might upset them, or that some personal or medical topics might come up during the conversation, which they will not be able to address.
Through our implementation of the project in 24 months we will develop 4 project results:
PR1: Knowledge and Activity Pack aiming to help YP to develop/improve/maintain their social and emotional skills, as social-emotional development is highly linked with positive mental health and can support individuals in coping with stress, dealing with different emotional states, improving personal relationships.
PR2: Inner YOUSMART PHONE APPLICATION which will be a Personalized Action Plans including a set of physical and relaxation activities to be performed at a weekly basis, which will help the user to build emotional strength and to cope with stressful situations etc.
PR3: CLOUD-BASEDPLATFORM which will be composed by e-Learning (with all learning material), the e-COMMUNITY (where all participants will be linked, experts, volunteers, YP, YW etc.) and a HELP DESK.
PR4: Guidebook: addressed to YW and youth organizations with the essential methodology, roles and responsibilities of participants, requirements, SWOT analysis, procedures, guidelines and tools for setting up the YouthMINDS CHALLENGE for ensuring project’s exploitation and sustainability and the pilot testing of all the produces intellectual outputs.
We are very happy to have the opportunity to involve in the project different associate partners, who will support out work and will be able to benefit from the project results in long term.
The project is funded by the Erasmus + program of the European Commission.
EN