In March of 2025, the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership hosted the seminar “Youth mental health and well-being” at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg. The purpose of the event was to bring together youth workers, researchers and policy makers to discuss how the youth sector is responding to the mental health and well-being needs of young people.
Written by Nik Paddison
At the seminar, we asked five people for their views on the seminar itself and more broadly about the connections between youth work, young people and the European level developments in youth work.
Firstly, I spoke to Lana Pasic who was the lead organiser of the seminar and who is the Youth Research and Policy Manager at the Youth Partnership. I also spoke to: Stanislava Vucković, who is the Youth and Adolescent Development Specialist for UNICEF, Serbia; Nick Morgan, the Chief Executive Officer of Euro Youth Mental Health, which works across Europe; Paavo Pyykkönen, who is the coordinator of the Mental Health in Youth Work SNAC at the Finnish National Agency; and Liselotte Bekaert who is the Coordinator for International Youth Work at JOETZ - a youth organisation in Belgium that puts young people’s health and well-being first, she is also President of the Board of JINT - Flemish National Agency for Erasmus+ Youth and European Solidarity Corps.
Young people’s mental health and well-being have been the focus of the Youth Partnership’s work since 2020. We started looking at this topic during the Covid-19 pandemic through our Knowledge HUB. At that time, we published two studies on the effects of the pandemic on young people’s mental health in 2021 and 2022, followed by an issue #32 of Coyote Youth Work Magazine on well-being. In 2022, we organised a symposium Navigating Transitions: adapting policy to young people’s changing realities, covering also the topic of mental health and well-being.
Young people’s mental health and well-being have been the focus of the Youth Partnership’s work since 2020.
Since 2024, we have been working on a comprehensive research which examines the impact of different factors on young people’s mental health and well-being, such as their socio-economic situations and precarious employment, the climate, digitalisation, and global conflicts. It analyses existing policies at both European and national levels, and maps out available services for young people.
The research will be published in the summer of 2025. Besides this study, the Youth Partnership is also developing a new T-Kit on the well-being and mental health of young people, which should be ready in 2026.
The seminar gave us an opportunity to present the findings of our research and bring together different actors who shared the work of their organisations and their online and offline resources and services. It also provided space for youth researchers, policymakers, youth workers and youth organisations to explore together what is happening at European, national and local levels and learn from each other.
When we are talking about young people and young adults, we are talking about adolescence and the post-adolescence period. This period of life is very important in human development and future success because it is marked by rapid developmental transitions and heightened vulnerability to external stressors.
Current data shows that 75% of mental health conditions begin by the age of 24. In the EU in 2021, an estimated one in five adolescents had a mental health condition and we can see from the data that life satisfaction is steadily declining among adolescents.
However, many young people still report that mental health is one of their top concerns.
One example of this is that adolescents are reporting more sleep difficulties and irritability now than they were a few years ago. There are also increased gender disparities, heightened stress from academic pressure, social media exposure, growing economic inequalities, and many other things.
Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among those aged 15 to 19. Fortunately, the number of young people dying by suicide is decreasing over time. Another positive development is that most adolescents do not require intensive mental health support. However, many young people still report that mental health is one of their top concerns.
Despite growing awareness, significant stigma remains around mental health issues, and access to affordable, high-quality, and accessible services is still lacking. This is why every young person needs our support. Our shared goal at the seminar was to foster the mental health and psychosocial well-being of young people, strengthen community capacity, and ensure the availability of non-stigmatising, accessible, and high-quality mental health prevention and promotion services.
The role of youth workers is critical. Youth workers and youth clubs, by the very definition of their job and space, are there to provide a baseline of support for young people’s well-being.
Youth work is where many young people get to discover themselves, to learn about themselves, to find out what they can and can't do, to test boundaries, build up their resilience, and generally foster and care for their well-being. Youth work also gives them an alternative trusted adult to speak to, to have someone to talk to about things when they get too hard or if things are not functioning as they want to.
Many serious mental health conditions arise when certain emotions or feelings hinder the young person’s ability to do things that they enjoy or things that they regularly do. Things like going to school or playing football or playing the guitar or hanging out with friends, etc. This is especially the case when these hindrances last for extended periods of time.
Many serious mental health conditions arise when certain emotions or feelings hinder the young person’s ability to do things that they enjoy.
For young people connected to youth work, the youth workers are often the first port of call to talk to if they are struggling. The youth workers’ responsibility is to be able to support the young people while knowing the limitations of their support.
They need to recognise if it is something that requires other professional support and so direct the young person to a more appropriate form of support where necessary, especially if it is something that requires more clinical engagement in helping them feel better.
Youth work engages young people in places and in activities that they are interested in and that are based on their own interests in a more social setting. Youth workers need to be more knowledgeable about how to support young people in their life developments.
Every young person, actually every human, can benefit from knowing the mental health skills they already have. These are some basic skills that help us to cope in situations of distress and/or pressure. For example, taking care to sleep enough, building constructive social relations, eating well, and doing some kind of regular exercise. These are basic things that everybody can do. You don't need a special degree for it.
Every young person can benefit from knowing the mental health skills they already have.
What I am a little bit tired of is that when we talk about how to take care of mental health, the first option that many youth workers jump onto is yoga. Unfortunately, this is either just their way of dealing with distress or they think it is what they are supposed to offer. But there are so many more ways.
I do gardening because I know it works for me, but it doesn't work for my husband. So, he has to find his own way. It is the same for young people, they are not stupid, they can understand what works for them and what does not work for them. They just need support to find what it is that works for them.
Once they find that something, they can build up these competences, and that makes them more resilient.
I think it is important to zoom out and look at mental health and well-being through a societal lens. One of the most important things we need to be doing is stopping something. We really need to stop asking “What’s wrong with this young person?” and start asking “What’s happening around this young person?”. That’s the mindset shift we need.
Young people’s mental health and well-being is not just an individual issue, it is a societal challenge. Living conditions, income, social connections, access to opportunities… All these factors shape how a young person feels and functions.
That is why we must address root causes, confront systemic barriers, and, equally important, normalise certain feelings instead of medicalising every experience. The focus needs to move beyond the individual and toward the broader context in which young people grow up.
Young people’s mental health and well-being is a societal challenge.
Youth work has a key role to play in this! But let’s make sure youth work stays as youth work. Let’s not overload it with responsibilities that belong elsewhere. Therefore, if we – the youth work sector – are serious about responding to the challenges young people face today, we need to engage with a cross-sectoral approach: across education, health, housing, employment, and even beyond!
I hope that there will be more focus on the fact that we have to listen to what young people need. Policies need to be made by listening to the needs of the young people. Let's cut the focus from economics and really start listening to what is needed and then engage the young people in forming areas of development that need to be formed – whether it is an activity at the local level or if it is a European policy development.
When we listen to young people, we need to ensure we are listening to all the young people and not just the obvious ones that are in the youth forums or youth councils and things like that. If we are listening to young people who are not used to being listened to, we are already supporting their resilience and mental well-being.
I think that this kind of mental health support is not rocket science. Yes, it must be covered in youth worker education, but it should also be recognised as a standard part of youth work so that, where there is no youth worker education, those practicing youth work include it as a natural part of their youth work.
It is clear from the seminar itself and the people we spoke to that mental health and well-being is an important topic in its own right, and at the same time, it is a topic that should be a part of everyday face-to-face youth work.
The European Youth Work Agenda lends support to these topics in nearly all of its priority areas, for example, it needs to be expanded on and developed. This means more research, more coordination between those specialising in it and more sharing of knowledge and practice – something the Youth Partnership is helping to happen.
Quality development is needed, as Paavo explained, we need to ensure that it is a part of youth work practice and a part of youth worker education. We need to be looking beyond the community of practice at a cross-sectoral approach as Liselotte shared. And there needs to be more policy development related to youth work and mental health and well-being at both national and European levels.