Speaker
Description
Author: Samuel Tomczyk (University of Greifswald)
Background: The mental health of children and young people is a key issue for prevention: for years, research has pointed to negative spirals of increasing illness-related stress, school absenteeism and unsuccessful educational and integration processes. The reasons range from insufficient consideration of life circumstances in the design of educational pathways and support services to social disintegration, poor individual skills (e.g. stress or emotion regulation) and a lack of resources (e.g. finances, personnel) for individually tailored support. In addition to individual-centered services (e.g. psychotherapy, counselling), community-based approaches that bring together different environments (e.g. education, health and social services) and create sustainably supportive environments are relevant. In this way, intersectoral cooperation can be strengthened and barriers to individual-centered services (e.g. stigma, low uptake) can be overcome.
Methods: Based on research on community-based approaches, a model was developed using focus groups (with young people, professionals), systematic literature research and expert interviews with Complex System Modeling to describe relevant influencing factors, relationships and outcomes at the municipal level.
Results: The analysis points to whole school/community approaches that combine behavioral and relationship-based prevention. These include, for example, rules for dealing with mental health problems, contact points and advice, strengthening mental health skills and self-regulation. For each topic area, different groups can be identified to make contributions (e.g. teachers, parents, children, neighborhood). Implementation should be participatory and take into account local characteristics.
Conclusion: Community-based approaches to strengthening mental health are promising. International research points to improvements in outcomes at an individual, social and institutional level. Due to the complexity, there has been a lack of rigorous evaluation studies to date and the diversity of education systems makes comparability difficult, even within Germany.
| Conflict of interest | None. |
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