Youth Mental Health Skills
By LAMSA
Reading Time:
3 minutes
According to WHO, young people aged 15-24 have been more severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis than adults.
That’s why 2021 year’s Youth Day was dedicated to youth overcoming the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Some global facts concerning the youth during the pandemic:
- Youth (15-24) employment fell by 8.7 per cent in 2020, compared with 3.7 per cent for adults (25 and over).
- Closure of schools, universities and training centers affected over 73% of the youth who were in education or training.
- 65% of young people have benefited less from tuition despite efforts to ensure continuity in education and training.
- 50% of young people aged 18-29 are possibly subject to anxiety or depression, while a further 17% are probably affected by it.
- he mental well-being of young people (aged 18-29) whose education or work has been disrupted the most was greatly reduced.
- Average mental-being is worse for young women, as well as for younger youth.
Reasons for poor mental well-being include:
- Widespread school and workplace closures.
- Worries related to their health and that of family and loved ones.
However, social activism and behaviors like staying connected to friends and family while adhering “stay-at-home measures” volunteering, donations and outreach have contributed to mitigate the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 on youth.
Young entrepreneurs have played an important role in helping others, by offering material and monetary donations, doing fundraisers, as well as making and distributing free PPE and food and hygiene products.
What actions can be done to improve youth mental well-being after the pandemic?
Youth hood being a period of mental and physical development and transition, poor youth mental well-being might delay recovery in education and employment. Actions should be taken and include:
- Providing MH services, psychosocial support and sport activities, integrated within youth employment, education and technical skills learning interventions.
- Creating a positive environment in the workplace, like continuous support and empowerment.
“In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day, to celebrate the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship” –WHO
Adolescence is considered a sensitive period, with many changes that occur, depending on specific inputs from the surrounding environment:
- Increased IQ with enhanced working memory, problem solving skills, social cognition, and new potential for higher order reasoning.
- Risky behavior, and sensation-seeking.
- Social Stress: Adolescents start being more influenced by their peers rather than authoritative figures.
- Gaining autonomy, and relying less on caregivers.
All this makes adolescents vulnerable to many challenges like:
- Affect regulation, and susceptibility to mental illnesses: 73.9% of adults with mental illnesses received a diagnosis before age 18.
- Risky sex subsequently contracting STDs, and gambling, etc.
- Doing Drugs, subsequently becoming addicts: Cannabis smoking during this specific period has deleterious effects on IQ.
This calls for specific interventions to guide adolescents to benefit from the advantages of this period, and prevent them from delinquency. Thus emerged many youth camps that develop the following skills:
- Strategic thinking: using knowledge of how people think and act, active anticipation and flexible planning adapted to anticipated scenarios.
- Transfer of Learning: extrapolation of skills learnt to a larger scale, and different settings.
- Mobilizing effort: devoting energy and time to work, and learning from outcomes.
- Concrete Organizing Skills: learning how to plan, and to organize tasks and how to deal with the accompanying stress.
“Young people aged 15-24 have been even more severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis than adults. Globally, youth employment fell by 8.7 per cent in 2020, compared with 3.7 per cent for adults.”-WHO
This year’s Youth Day, will be dedicated to youth overcoming the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
