“What?! I’m not stressed!”

Project title: “What?! I’m not stressed!”

  • funded by the JUGEND für Europa, the German National Agency for the Erasmus+ Youth programme.

Project partners:

  • JUGEND, BILDUNG UND KULTUR EV, Germany
  • Association for improvement of modern living skills “Realization”, Croatia
  • CENTAR ZA NEFORMALNO OBRAZOVANJE I CELOZIVOTNO UCENJE UDRUZENJE, Serbia
  • LINK DMT SRL, Italy
  • Out of the Box International, Belgium
  • Learning Wizard d.o.o., Croatia

Project duration: 20 months – from 31.05.2022 till 30.01.2024.

Summary of the project:

Young people nowadays are dealing with stress way more than previously young generations did. When searching about general statistics worldwide, it shows that there is a higher rate of stress issues with young people comparing to adults. That is due to different issues such as peer conflict, bullying at education institutions, financial situations, career orientation that determine their future and income, and so on. With the Covid-19 pandemic being present in our lives for quite a significant period, mental health concerns increased even more.

“The psychosocial effects of COVID-19 disproportionately affect young people. Both immediate and long-term factors through which young people are affected include social isolation, changes to the delivery of therapeutic services and almost complete loss of all structured occupations (school, work and training) within this population group.” (Power, E., Hughes, S., Cotter, D., & Cannon, M.; 2020)

“Because of the COVID-19 related school closures and social distancing measures, millions of children have been confined at home. Although families, communities, and schools have attempted to adapt, at times successfully, many children and youth have been deprived of structured support, trapped in dysfunctional family settings, and are relying largely on peer relations through the unsupervised use of social media.” (Rousseau, C., & Miconi, D.;2020)

Living in an era where social networks highlight the importance of socialising and posting content for others to see the activity and surroundings, makes youngsters feel even more the need to belong and being included. Also, the amount of time spent on social networks enables them to see more of each other’s lives and unconsciously compare with their own lives and achievements.

Our concerns are relevant for different level of youth work and respective stress elements – both for youngsters, as well as for youth workers on all levels of youth work – local, national, European and international – as pandemic influences significantly the way youth work and approaches to youngsters are organised nowadays.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to tackle this issue and mobilise youth workers in Europe to contribute to supporting young people’s mental health. This can be done through empowerment of both young people who are dealing with stress and youth workers who tackle these topics and target groups. This project aims to work on the mentioned issues through empowerment of youngsters with fewer opportunities and youth workers by producing relevant educational materials and developing quality strategic partnership among European countries.

Project objectives:

  • Empower youth workers for prevention and management of stress among marginalised youngsters, through development of inspiring and innovative Curriculum, LTTA and the Online course for youth workers’ training.
  • Empower youngsters with fewer opportunities in coping mechanisms and dealing with stress and anxiety, through innovative Toolkit with multidisciplinary approach workshops for beneficiaries.
  • Exchange good practices and further develop quality strategic partnership among partners from 5 European countries with different realities in regard to youth stress management and prevention.

Project activities are:

  • A1 – Project Management
  • M1 – Kick-off project meeting
  • O1 Toolkit “What?! I’m not stressed!” – Toolkit for youth workers to implement different workshops with their beneficiaries of youngsters with fewer opportunities on stress prevention and management; with the multidisciplinary approach to the topic.
  • M2 – Second project meeting
  • O2 Curriculum “What?! I’m not stressed!” – Curriculum for empowering youth workers current and future ones to further educate, mentor and support youngsters with fewer opportunities in stress prevention and management, as well as to deal with their own stress in youth work they perform.
  • M3 – Third project meeting
  • O3 E-learning course “What?! I’m not stressed!” – an innovative and up-to-date digital tool / online course for relevant topics and with tools for prevention and management of stress that is happening in every day face-to-face and online situations amongst youth and in youth work nowadays.
  • C1 – LTTA – Training of trainers in youth work for stress management among youth with fewer opportunities
  • E1, E2, E3, E4, E5 – Open conferences in RS, IT, HR, DE, BE
  • M4 – Final Evaluation meeting

Annexes

 

Links to the NOTstressed O3 Online courses in all 6 languages (DE, EN, IT, HR, RS, FR):

 


*Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.