Don’t worry, Be You: Fostering Youth & Community Wellbeing

Our partnership has applied for this project based on the premise there was a big need to work on the topic of mental health amongst youth, especially after the pandemic. We also applied for this ...

The overall project goal is to equip young people with fewer opportunities with knowledge, techniques and competences how to live a happier and fulfilled life, and to foster wellbeing in their communities by combining game-based community-building practices with advocacy work and training youth workers as health & wellbeing coaches to provide better assistance to young people and thus increase the quality of European youth work. Specific project objectives are split in 4 dimensions: 1. Individual Mental Health: support awareness raising of young people and youth workers about mental health & wellbeing and develop a methodology to foster well-being through non-formal learning methods. 2. Collective Mental Health: develop competences of young people in community-based initiatives with a focus on sustainability, ecological awareness and collaboration (with a possibility for the schools and non-formal learning institutions to use this model). 3. Empowerment: empower young people use all the created tools in the project and become role models for other young people and communities to engage in a change process. 4. Advocacy: empower young people to become role models in the community and influence policy

The key project activities executed were based on the development of four Project Results which are linked to four pillars of the Don’t Worry Be You model and the LEMC learning method: 1. Learn: A 160 page Wellbeing Workbook (PR1) focused on empowering and equipping youth workers and offering youth activities that enhance well-being, based on 6 pathways, covering (a.o.) emotional, physical and mental content, exercises and reflection. 2. Embody: 10 Embodiment Video Tutorials (PR2) embodiment practices support youth and youthworkers to increase to connect to the signals in their bodies as a channel of communication of their well-being. 3. Mindfulness: A 21 day Mindfulness Challenge (PR3) with 21 podcasts and exercises that can be hosted in app or chat channels with groups that want to connect to present moment and feel grounded and safe. 4. Connect: The Good Deed Game (PR4) and Guide for organizers and facilitators has been developed to support community well-being by an engaging activity that give community members and networks sense of purpose and connection to other people as an antidote to isolation. The project were developed in the first part of the program, kicked off by a transnational project meeting in Berlin in march 2022. The results were tested and trained to youth workers of all partners in a Learning and training activity in Zagreb in october 2022. Key feedbacks were used to improve and finalize the first three project results and afterwards the development of the Good Deed Game started. Early 2023 the results were tested by the partners in a series of local 4-pillar workshops and test rounds with end-users; youthworkers and disadvantaged youth. A part of this group and other youth were invited to blended mobility event, transnational learning and training activity in Italy in early may 2023. Youngsters left empowered and equipped to replicate DWBY content, set up local well-being projects, strongly connected as a network and part of regional teams preparing to implement Good Deed Games. The project results were translated and offered in 6 languages (English, Dutch, Croatian, Greek, Italian and Bulgarian) and are now available for free download from the project website www.dontworrybeyou.org. The results were presented in the 6 countries during multiplier events to an audience of 170 European multipliers and disseminated through a network of partners and associate partners inside and outside the European Union to thousands of people through online activities, newsletters, campaigns, additional workshops and social media.

We developed four accessible, attractive, profound and comprehensive tools that have been tested, used and disseminated, which we repeat here again; 1. Learn: A 160 page Wellbeing Workbook (PR1) focused on empowering and equipping youth workers and offering youth activities that promote well-being, based on 6 pathways, covering (a.o.) emotional, physical and mental content, exercises and reflection. 2. Embody: 10 Embodiment Video Tutorials (PR2) embodiment practices support youth and youthworkers to increase to connect to the signals in their bodies as a channel of communication of their well-being. 3. Mindfulness: A 21 day Mindfulness Challenge (PR3) with 21 podcasts and exercises that can be hosted in app or chat channels with groups that want to connect to present moment and feel grounded and safe. 4. Connect: The Good Deed Game (PR4) and Guide for organizers and facilitators has been developed to support community well-being by an engaging activity that give community members and networks sense of purpose and connection to other people as an antidote to isolation. We have now *20* youth workers from Croatia, Netherlands, Greece, Bulgaria, Germany and Italy trained to be wellbeing coaches with a high skill level for the topic mental health & wellbeing. We have set up a network of youth and youngsters in the 6 partner countries that are part of our informal youth council and international community, applying DWBY content in their projects. It raised their level of confidence and contentment, gained skills of self-care practices, as well as a sense of initiative and ownership; We have disseminated the materials to more than 170 youth workers in 6 European countries who not only learnt together, but also raised their awareness about the importance of mental health & wellbeing in youthwork. Our indirect dissemination through newsletters, online messaging, social media and other dissemination activities have reached 170 + youthworkers and professionals directly, many more indirectly and dissemination activities of partners individually and as a collective have reached 300.000+ views. Our partner organisations have strengthened their profiles on a regional and national level as advocates of conscious and inclusive wellbeing work within their community, various follow up projects have been executed or planned to continue implementing DWBY and well-being work. 300+ community stakeholders and policy makers become involved in the project activities to design and support youth initiatives and wellbeing policies at local, as well as regional and international level, strengthened by the culture of collaboration and solidarity. In the middle-long term, the project will continue to seek to facilitate better understanding of the importance of mental health topic for youth and communities, involve young people in the process of designing wellbeing policies as co-creators and change makers, and create new value of sustainability for communities through a common focus on wellbeing. This will take place under the umbrella of the YEPP Europe network of which all organizations have now become members of. The next step after focussing on developing, testing, implementation and dissemination is in the coming years increase the application and dissemination of the materials through local activities and international activities amongst partners.