Introducing a new Erasmus+ project
Project duration: 1.10.2022-30.9.2024
PROJECT PARTNERS:
Future In Perspective (Ireland)
SEMwell and Motion Digital s.r.o.(Czech Republic)
Backslash (Spain)
TARGET GROUP
Youth workers (no age limit)
Youth (12-25 years)
Through the SafeSpace4Youth project, we are engaging directly with youth workers and youth professionals and young people in their communities to enable them to become local ambassadors for positive mental health promotion, prevention support and early intervention. We build on the fact that 75% of all mental illnesses occur between the ages of 15 and 25. According to UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2021 report, three adolescents lose their lives every day in Europe due to mental health problems. Nine million adolescents in Europe (aged 10-19) are living with a mental illness, with more than half of all cases attributable to anxiety and depression. Research shows that when young people start to show the first signs of mental health problems, early intervention is key to preventing these difficulties. Mental health not only affects the overall sense of well-being, it also plays an important role in young people's employability and employability, not only in the labour market. However, youth workers and young people do not always have access to the services and resources they desperately need.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The objectives aimed at youth workers are: | The youth-focused objectives are as follows: |
1) To train youth workers to support prevention and early intervention measures in relation to young people's mental health and wellbeing. | 1) Train and encourage youth to promote prevention and early intervention among their peers. |
2) To support youth workers to create a safe space within their local context to explore themes of mental health, wellbeing, self-awareness and self-concept in young people. | 2) To offer young people the opportunity to participate in social action projects and thus develop their socio-emotional skills, which will enable them to gain a better position not only in the labour market. |
3) Offer opportunities for continuing rofessional development to enable youth workers to incorporate social action methods into their existing practice. | 3) Create and work with a Local Youth Committee. |
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SPECIFIC OUTPUTS
Training for youth professionals
This training works with a coaching model focused on promoting positive mental health that youth workers will be able to apply in their setting and local community.
Peer Leadership Program for Youth
The programme consists of 4 modules that will support young people to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to become ambassadors of positive mental health amongst their peers. As part of this programme a special fund has been set up which will be used to create a TikTok campaign promoting the SS4Y project and the Peer Leadership programme.
Free web-based learning platform
A website containing developed training and educational materials on positive mental health aimed at supporting young people. It also includes a library of stories that will serve as inspiration and motivation for young people currently experiencing mental health problems.
USE OF GENDER-SENSITIVE CZECH
By using gender-responsive language, we want to contribute to the creation of a training for all youth workers in which trainers and young people can safely explore the topic of mental health without social or biological constraints and taboos.
At SEMwell and Motion Digital, this effort to actively include all persons is seen as a necessity, a statement of respect for all gender-identifying persons other than the traditional male/female divide. Therefore, by using gender-correct language, we want to express and acknowledge the real contribution of women or gender non-conforming individuals to the running of society without at the same time diminishing the importance of men, diminishing respect for them, or even, in turn, wanting to now exclude them from the language.
The practical use of gender-correct language that we have chosen for the project (and our communication in SEMwell and Motion Digital) is based on the Language Recommendation for the Czech Language by linguist Mgr. Jana Valdrová, Ph.D., and the recommendation from Prague Pride.
We use an asterisk* in written speech to show respect for groups that are virtually invisible in the Czech language due to the use of a generic masculine. Basically, we are talking about women and people of other different genders and sexes. Most of us have already encountered the use of a slash in the case of words of the same base that differ in gender. Unlike the slash, which means "or", however, the asterisk encompasses the entire spectrum of gender diversity and thus fills the entire space between masculine and feminine in the language.