Good news for young people in Parkstad! Instead of having to visit the family doctor first, teens dealing with mental health worries can now get support in places they already hang out. Think school, the football club, or even just on the street. 🙌
A lot of young people simply do not know where to turn when things get tough in their head. Stefanie, who became a mum at 16, totally gets that: ‘I did not really know who to reach out to.’ Juggling work, motherhood and being yourself, that is a lot to handle.
That is why so-called ‘scouts’, like Lizanne, go out and find young people themselves. They start a friendly, no-pressure chat. And it works, because:
- Waiting lists in regular mental health care are often way too long
- Not every question needs a specialist
- Many worries come from money troubles or stuff at home
At the Centre for Positive Health, they look at the bigger picture: how is your quality of life? Do you feel like you belong? An hour of calm conversation can already make a world of difference. 💬
The approach is now running at several schools across Parkstad.
The heart of this approach is the concept of ‘Positive Health’, a model that views wellbeing as much more than just the absence of illness. Scouts spend roughly an hour per session exploring six areas of life with the young person, including quality of life, social participation and daily functioning. The idea: many mental health issues among teens are not caused by a clinical ‘disorder’ but by stacked-up problems like financial stress, family conflicts or loneliness. By looking early and broadly, the system prevents young people from getting unnecessarily funnelled into expensive, specialist mental health pathways, where waiting times can now stretch from months to over a year.
Source: L1
