The objective of the ME-Health project's implementation was to allow to exchange experience, best practices, knowledge and know-how regarding the psychological and pedagogical problems that appeared among young people due to the COVID-19 crisis and its implications on education. We wanted to share experience and best practices within a partnership including representatives of 4 countries regarding ways of dealing with teenagers' psychological and pedagogical issues during the pandemic and distant education as well. During the project, we were joined by an associated partner representing a VET school from the Netherlands, which allowed us to have a wider perspective on the treated topics. Moreover, we aimed at working on more efficient ways of using ICT in online education and supporting young people psychologically and pedagogically with the ICT. Finally, we wanted to identify tools/instruments/solutions that might be useful in dealing with mental problems of young people in connection to the sanitary crisis in the European Union.
We applied for this project to help young people across Europe (especially 13-18-year-old) to deal with post COVID-19 pandemic psychological and pedagogical problems. In 2021, teachers, parents, schools, psychologists and local administrations faced a rapid and unexpected increase in mental health issues among adolescent students. A lot of schools were lacking of specialized staff and, if they were employed, they felt overwhelmed by the scope of psychological and pedagogical problems caused by the pandemic, its challenges and remote education. The same concerns were raised by parents and all specialists in charge of mental health. Moreover, the sanitary crisis has clearly shown a huge importance of digital tools in school education and its role in supporting young people psychologically and pedagogically. Distant learning was a big challenge for teachers, parents and various educators. All those challenges and needs did not disappear with the last lockdown. They were still present and reinforced by new crisis situations that took place after the COVID-19. All the stakeholders mentioned above and the partners involved in the project were obliged to face them and look for new solutions.