The focus of the project is to mainstream mental health and mental health education, giving tools, supporting and engaging youth in the process.
Mental ESCAPE uses innovative educational processes and methodologies in participatory processes between youth and youth workers to reach out to youth and citizens that are not the usual suspects of youth work projects.
Mental ESCAPE supports social inclusion through the topics it will focus on
- Mental health: currently one of the core problems for youth and minorities across the world
- Depression and loneliness: main form of mental health problem among young people
- Isolation and problems due to COVID-19: loneliness, health anxiety, various forms of depression, sleeping issues, fear and grief have been reported as raising mental health problems youth addressed during April 2020
- Addiction to gambling: a new form of exclusion and affecting especially youth across Europe because of the post-2008 crisis growth of betting shops in neighborhoods and growing during COVID-19 pandemic through online apps.
- Addiction to social media and technology: it is considered the new smoking, a problem that is not yet acknowledged by most of society as it continues growing.
- Mental health and social inclusion mainstreaming is intended through the social media campaign AND in a more remarkable way, through the partnership and collaboration between youth work and private sector. The involvement of business in the outcomes design, implementation and dissemination is an added value that needs to become more common in our field of work and we hope to support growing through the example of Mental ESCAPE
The project supports innovation in the digital era because of the three central approaches:
- Selection of the technology-based mental health problems of the youth of addiction to social media, technology and gambling and the consequences in personal behavior, identity,
family and friends. - Collaboration with other mental health online campaigns, movements and influencers for a higher impact and viralisation in social media.
- A social media campaign in the platforms where youth are active, shifting from the classic focus on Facebook
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
