Make It Thrive aimed to support educators in addressing mental health challenges within schools, strengthening their competences competences to identify and respond to such issues appropriately. It also sought to ensure equal opportunities and access to psychological support for all, contributing to a healthier school climate, improved academic performance, and greater personal well-being. Furthermore, the project intended to promote inclusion and diversity across the fields of education and youth. As specific objectives, we highlight the following: - To help teachers to cope with psychological issues in the school, through the use of the website that will be created; - To support educators on the path to digital transformation by helping them in developing their digital skills, through the project's online resource; - To promote professional training and development of the teachers, so they can foster a healthy school environment; - To promote individual and group mobility for learning purposes, namely from the educator's point of view; - To disseminate the results created among the community, in order to reach as many educators as possible and promote the content developed as the main support tool to deal with the mental health
The urgency of creating relevant initiatives in the field of mental health within the school context became particularly evident in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The growing awareness of mental health issues and the impact that lockdowns had, especially on children and adolescents—many of whom saw their difficulties intensify—confirmed the need to invest more in this area. Studies showed that Portugal, Greece, and Italy, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, had fewer than 20 psychologists per 100,000 inhabitants, below the recommended level. In contexts where the situation was concerning, such as in Portugal, a study from the University of Coimbra revealed that 14% of adolescents aged 13 to 16 displayed elevated depressive symptoms during the pandemic. In Greece, 15.2% of children and adolescents aged 5 to 14 reported experiencing feeling anxious, nervous or worried at least once a week (European Commission, 2023). In Italy, 1 in 5 students reported symptoms linked to mental health difficulties (Donato, F., et al., 2021). These alarming indicators underline the need to develop initiatives that help reduce and, crucially, identify such problems early, enabling timely intervention with students.