Stronger Youth: peer mentoring for adolescents’ wellbeing
As part of the Stronger Youth project, which aims to develop an effective methodology based on peer support to promote psychological well-being among adolescents and combat social exclusion, a number of activities were implemented to provide the skills needed to offer adequate support to adolescents and educators through an integrated approach that would enable the beneficiaries of the intervention to also become protagonists of positive change in contemporary society. During the project activities, tools produced by the partner countries were tested, such as the Toolkit, which integrates collaborative peer activities, and a Guide for Educators.
In the local context, the activities took place in the cities of Palermo and Caltanissetta and involved six pairs of mentors and students and three supervising educators, who tested a total of 30 activities on how to build relationships, teamwork, emotional regulation, and other topics useful for building social skills.
Relevance of the intervention in the local context
The objectives and activities of the Stronger Youth project fully address the needs of the local context: according to Istat data from 2021, with the crisis following the Covid-19 epidemic, there has been a significant increase in youth dissatisfaction and, at the same time, a decline in the average mental health index score. The Istat report also highlights the risks to social relations among young people even in the post-pandemic phase, given the weakening of social networks and the difficulty in resuming or creating new social relationships after periods of isolation. This is the context into which the Stronger Youth project operates. Using a peer mentoring methodology, it enables young people in their teens to develop social skills aimed at recognizing different types of distress and taking action to combat them and provides educators with the skills they need to supervise this process.
Results achieved
The effectiveness of the methodology developed is demonstrated by the positive results achieved following the implementation of the project activities: in the activity evaluation questionnaires, participants expressed positive opinions, stating that they had strengthened their interpersonal skills and acquired tools to improve their social skills. Some participants emphasised the effectiveness of the activities carried out, suggesting that they be repeated in the future and that more adults be involved in the activities.
