Problem addressed
In most of European countries, many youngsters (16-29 years old) face difficulties to: a) manage and solve the conflicts with their families and environment, b) make everyday decisions and c) establish objectives, design actions plans and carry out life projects. According to official statistics and reports, often these difficulties derive from emotional and behavioural problems and other psychosocial circumstances. At this point, we have to take into account that young people with (even without) mental health diagnosis frequently do not know to manage their emotional ups and downs nor how to regulate their reactions in stressing situations. In consequence, they deal with more difficulties than others to finish their studies, find a job, establish constructive and healthy relationships and to live independently.
During E-YOUTH project, we have developed a supporting methodology to address this problematic scenario. Specifically, this methodological resource helps professionals to identify youngsters’ complex needs, derived from emotional and behavioural problems, and to design personalised support plans to promote the autonomy and social inclusion of this social group.
Innovative solution
We have developed the E-YOUTH Methodology. This helps both organisations and professionals to: a) Identify and analyse youngsters’ complex needs and to b) design individualised support plans according to these needs.
It is necessary to clarify that we have developed this methodology according to a participatory research. Concretely, professionals (social workers and educators, psychologists, criminologists, teachers) and young people with complex needs participated in focus groups, helping us to identify what elements and variables we should contemplate in our interventions and support plans.
This methodology is innovative insofar as:
1) it has been developed with the active participation of frontline professionals and young people,
2) it takes into account, in a dynamic way, how individuals try to resolve their everyday problems and manage their emotions and what socio-emotional schemes they use to interpret their experiences and
3) it observes how individuals manage their conflicts.
In fact, E-YOUTH Methodology promotes that organisations include in their psychosocial reports 3 dimensions frequently ignored or forgotten: a) the competences, pragmatic knowledge, social relationships and, in general, the resources that youngster use in their daily lives, b) the cognitive and behavioural strategies they implement to face their problems and to manage their emotions and c) the mental schemes, considering their emotional dimension, that people use to interpret their mistakes, failures and successes.
Key results and benefits
Below, we will describe the benefits derived from E-YOUTH project and, specifically, from each of its results:
A) The qualitative and quantitative research (1st project result) has allowed us to identify the competencies that professionals need to develop in order to support young people with complex needs. The results of this research are helping us to design and carry out training courses aimed to develop and/or reinforce these skills and to explore new methodological tools. Moreover, thanks to our findings, organisations count with more knowledge about the competencies that are crucial to provide a quality support.
Be that as it may, the mentioned training courses are providing knowledge and guidelines more appropriate to manage and give a response to youngsters’ needs.
B) The E-YOUTH Methodology (2nd project result) has helped us to identify and analyse how young people tend to face their problems and manage their emotions and how they interpret their negative and positive experiences. Analysing their cognitive, emotional and behavioural habits is essential to design, in cooperation with the attended people, a supporting plan really personalised and, to that extent, effective. In fact, this methodology guides professionals both in the evaluation interviews and in the supporting plan development.
According to these observations, this innovative methodology is promoting the self-awareness of youngsters and, at the same time, their autonomy, resilience and social inclusion. As part of the E-YOUTH Methodology, professionals carry out structured interviews (followed by a systematic observation process) in which young people play an active role exploring their own competencies, cognitive and behavioural coping strategies and mental schemes. After all, guided by professionals of support, youngsters need to define:
1) The competencies and skills they need to develop and the social relationships they should build with their environment to reach their objectives;
2) The problem-solving and emotional management strategies they need to develop and incorporate in their everyday lives;
3) The schemes that they need to build to interpret their failures and mistakes in a more adaptive and constructive way.
Identifying these elements, youngsters can help to delimitate their complex needs.
C) The pedagogical manual about how to implement the E-YOUTH Methodology and some related therapeutic tools (3rd project result) has helped professionals to incorporate, in an effective way, this new resource in their everyday tasks, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their interventions and, in general, of the service. At the same time, these improvements have implied that professionals are more satisfied with the care that they provide to young people at risk of social exclusion.
Taking into account that the implementation process is as important as the implemented methodology, this manual has been essential to improve youngsters’ well-being.
D) The policy recommendations (final project result) have promoted that public authorities, stakeholders, in general, other community actors know the difficulties and problems that young people have managing their emotions and regulating their behaviours. These policy recommendations, according to the participatory research we have carried out, provide clear guidelines about the methodologies and tools that both organisations and professionals should use to promote the autonomy and social inclusion of vulnerable groups.
Potential for mainstreaming
E-YOUTH Methodology can improve the quality of our services through the personalisation of the interventions. In fact, according to the implementation process, the results point out that professionals can incorporate this resource in their everyday tasks without too much difficulty. After all, the methodology encourages to multidisciplinary teams to carry out complementary interviews and a systematic observation on youngsters’ resources, cognitive and behavioural strategies and on their socio-emotional schemes. Therefore, E-YOUTH methodology pretends, mainly, become a complementary resource aimed to explore and reconduct how youngsters with emotional and behavioural problems interpret, face and feel their difficulties, problems and conflicts.
Moreover, social workers and educators, psychologists, criminologists and teachers can use this methodology to address a broad spectrum of social problems and support needs. This resource can be implemented in different contexts like, for instance, in schools, foundations, counselling centres, etc. Given these conditions, different services and professionals can use the same methodology and, in consequence, elaborate their corresponding reports ensuring a higher degree of coherence among these. Without doubt, this can facilitates its integration in the existing services and, at the same time, into the new systems that encompass social and health services.
Drissa Foundation, a Catalan organisation, and the Young Health Centre of Girona, a public service, are implementing and adapting the E-YOUTH Methodology to different social groups and contexts. Concretely, Drissa Foundation is adapting this intervention resource to people that have different mental health diagnoses of certain severity (not only youngsters). In fact, they are implementing this methodology in a service aimed to promote the labour insertion of people with disabilities. On the other hand, the Young Health Centre is using this methodology with adolescents that count with diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.
Moreover, the E-YOUTH Methodology has been used to develop a psychometric assessment instrument called A-DAPTONOMY (currently, the University of Girona and Support-Girona are designing a local project to validate it).
On the other hand, the organisations involved in developing the project (OZARA, COCEMFE Sevilla, UDAF and EQUIP) have adapted and implemented the E-YOUTH materials in order to address the challenges they face in supporting young people with emotional and behavioural issues.
