Let’s Speak about it! Youth and emotional well-being

Aims & objectives

The main objectives of the project were:
-to let the participants explore and share their countries’ and local communities' realities regarding mental health issues and emotional wellbeing of young people
-to provide with methods, techniques and tools to allow people who work with the youth to deal with mental health issues that might come up during their projects among the people of their group (recognition of mental issues and emotional first aid in case of need in order to prevent the issue to escalate until getting further help)
-to discover different approaches of non-formal education towards opening perspectives and supporting young people in using them to make a local impact
-to strengthen the relationships and enhance further cooperation among organisations, strengthening the already existing synergies and expanding the network of partnerships and initiatives

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

The Training course included the participation of 28 youth workers from the following Countries: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, United Kingdom

Training methods used & main activities

Non-formal and informal learning methods were used throughout the duration of the Training; focus was given to the sharing of Countries’ realities, open spaces, forum theatre, simulation and role playing of emotional situations, distribution and filling in of forms, questionnaires and self-evaluation modules

Outcomes of the activity

Participants had the opportunity to improve their key competences, as defined in the Youthpass and specific in relation to the topics of the Training.
In particular, main outcomes were related to the ways to recognize and address mental health issues, to improve emotional resilience and well-being, emotional first aid and support, expressing feelings constructively and dealing properly with conflicts and crisis, practice of coaching elements

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

As freelance trainer, after an initial phase of contacts with the organizations promoting the project and after finalizing the design of the activities, I was in charge to facilitate and train the group of participants taking part to the Training, from the welcoming part to the team building activities, from the thematic workshops, role plays and simulations to the individual learning activities and reflection moments

I worked on this training for 9 days as a full time trainer.