With this project, we aimed to: Strengthen the capacity of partner organisations to design inclusive and innovative youth activities that integrate mental health as a core component. Raise awareness among youth workers about early signs of mental health challenges and equip them with practical coping tools, while helping to reduce stigma. Build a sustainable network for sharing good practices in youth mental health. Develop a manual and a checklist tool to support the implementation of high-quality, mental health-conscious youth work at the local level. Disseminate and scale the project’s outcomes at national and European levels to support wider impact in youth work across Europe.
We applied for this project to address the urgent and growing need to integrate mental health into youth work. Recent crises, including the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have severely impacted young people, increasing anxiety, isolation, and emotional distress. At the same time, youth workers lacked adequate training to identify and respond to these challenges, while the topic of mental health remained stigmatised and underprioritised. Through We Care, we aimed to strengthen our organisations’ capacity to create inclusive, supportive environments where mental wellbeing is understood, valued, and proactively addressed. We wanted to better equip both paid staff and volunteers to recognise early signs of mental health issues and respond with care and appropriate tools. By collaborating at the European level, we were able to share experiences, collect good practices, and develop practical resources, such as the checklist and the manual, that can benefit youth workers across Europe. Ultimately, this project helps ensure that mental health becomes a core element of quality youth work.