EmpowerYOUth: Enhancing Youth Mental Wellbeing is an Erasmus+ funded project designed to equip youth workers with the skills and competencies needed to support the wellbeing and resilience of students aged 14-18. By fostering meaningful discussions on challenging and relevant issues, the project aims to create a stronger foundation for mental health support among young people.
Building upon the success of two previous projects, BUILD and I-YOU, EmpowerYOUth adapts and enhances existing methodologies to further empower youth workers. BUILD, a collaboration between Iceland, Ireland, and Lithuania, developed a modular learning course addressing key issues identified by young people, including family dynamics, friendships, mental health, and anxiety. Piloting of this curriculum demonstrated measurable increases in resilience among youth. I-YOU, a project involving Belgium, Iceland, and Bulgaria, created an inclusive online ecosystemic youth coaching platform. This self-coaching wellbeing app provides visual prompts, insights, and practical exercises to guide youth and youth workers in communication, active listening, emotional regulation, and critical thinking.
EmpowerYOUth was formally launched at the first transnational partner meeting in Reykjavík, Iceland. Partners from Iceland (Pieta Samtökin and NORTH Consulting), Bulgaria (National Management School), and Italy (Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci) gathered for two days of intensive workshops, mapping the needs of youth, youth workers, and parents to refine and enhance the project. Discussions included youth surveys from each participating country, revealing that in addition to previously identified themes, young people are increasingly concerned about financial literacy, loneliness, and stress both in and outside of school.
A key component of the project is the integration of I-YOU’s self-coaching tools into the EmpowerYOUth framework. By combining I-YOU’s actionable methods with BUILD’s structured curriculum, EmpowerYOUth offers a comprehensive and accessible resource for youth workers. These resources are designed not only to help youth workers engage young people effectively but also to provide parents with tools they can use in their daily lives to support their children’s emotional and psychological development.
The meeting in Reykjavík underscored the power of cross-cultural collaboration in addressing challenges in youth mental wellbeing and resilience building. By leveraging expertise from multiple countries and diverse professional backgrounds, EmpowerYOUth is creating a robust, practical approach to supporting young people’s wellbeing. As the project moves forward, it continues to evolve, ensuring that youth workers across Europe have access to the most effective strategies and tools to help young people navigate life’s challenges with resilience and confidence.
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