Out Bound Youth Work

Background According to the United Nations (2020), 56.3% of the global population live in urban areas. Urbanization affects mental health through the influence of increased stressors and factors such as overcrowded and polluted environment, high levels of violence, and reduced social support. The range of disorders associated with urbanization is enormous and includes psychoses, depression, alcoholism, crime, delinquency, family disintegration, and alienation (Trivedi, Sareen, & Dhyani, 2008) Young people are one of the groups in society that are more prone to suffer from mental health problems due to urbanization and this detachment from nature (Hill, 2007). Statistics by the World Health Organization (2020), state that: - Mental health conditions account for 16% of the global burden of disease and injury in people aged 13-19 years, - Half of all mental health conditions start by 14 years of age but most cases are undetected and untreated, - Globally, depression is one of the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents, - Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in 15-19-year-olds. In fact, as youth workers, we have been noticing that there has been an increase in mental health conditions amongst the youth that we work with. This trend has been on the increase for the last few years and spiked when the pandemic hit. IASIS reported that the increase in young people with mental health conditions was unprecedented and they yearn to be provided with additional tools to work more effectively. What eventually convinced us to develop this project was the unfortunate event where we had two young people that we work with; from Malta and Estonia, who suffer from depression and who tried to commit suicide. During follow-up meetings, Prisms’ youthworker suggested that we start working with wilderness therapy and both