Mental health problems influence adolescents’ social, intellectual and emotional development. They can have great effects on school performance, opportunities for higher education and/or entry to the labour market. 

FACT: There is a clear need to invest in better child and adolescent mental health. Nevertheless, society often does not seem to realise the importance of mental health in adolescence and hence often fails to invest sufficiently in reestablishing a connection with their inner self.

Furthermore, times have changed in a more digitalized and individualistic sense. Social media currently seem to have an unseen impact on teenagers’ wellbeing, since ‘perfection’ and ‘overall success’ are the new norm. As a result, unrealistic expectations concerning their way of being, body and person as a whole are created. Nevertheless, when it comes to adolescents’ mental health, problems frequently remain undetected since these teens are often reluctant to share worries and concerns as they see it as a risk (i.e. rejection). The profiles these adolescents create online, therefore often do not resemble the person they feel on the inside, which results in being hyperconnected digitally whilst still feeling very lonely. 

With this Erasmus project, we want to help adolescents engage more in the world they live in today. Research will be done in order to get a scope on the negatives as to create tools for a positive outcome. As such, we aim to make them feel better about themselves and to let them involve in ‘real connections’ with others as to let them shape a more realistic outlook on life. 

Our project will be based on a selection of potential negative effects linked to social media (lack of sleep, anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, distorted body image, cyber bullying and FOMO). We will provide our participating students with workshops (both online and offline) as to make them more resilient to these negative effects. The outcome of these workshops and the new insights granted by the project will be available on this website!