Planning an innovative framework of primary prevention interventions

The findings collected during the first year of the Me-We project have served as basis to co-design and develop – together with adolescent young carers and relevant stakeholders- an innovative framework of primary prevention interventions for adolescent young carers.

Caring can have negative and positive effects on a young person. It is important to act early, in a preventative way, by strengthening the adolescent’s ability to cope with stressful situations and by enhancing the social support available to him.

These psychosocial interventions precisely aim to mitigate the risk factor of being an adolescent young carer, by empowering the young with improved resilience (the process of negotiating, managing and adapting to significant sources of stress or trauma) and enhanced social support (from family, school, peers, services).

The interventions will cover different psychosocial aspects of adolescent young carers’ situation, including their personal needs and experiences, their relationships with peers, the support and education from schools and services and, more generally, their inclusiveness in the community by combating stigma, bullying and negative attitudes.

The project proposes an innovative common framework of primary prevention interventions that is, a ‘menu of options’ of successful and effective approaches, from which each partner country shall select, tailor and apply those options that best meet their specific national context and AYCs’ preferences.

The project partners will implement psychosocial interventions targeted to at least 100 adolescent young carers per country (50 in the experimental group, 50 in the control group).

The expected impact of the interventions will be: improved mental health of those adolescent young carers who take part in them, as well as – in the long term- improved educational experience, employability and social exclusion. The researchers will use validated and reliable instruments to measure – pre and post intervention- the amount of caring, the impact of caring on young carers’s life and on their mental health.

The research-based evidence of effective strategies to prevent negative mental health outcomes in adolescent young carers and to enhance their educational attainment, employability and social inclusion can be used beyond the life of the project and beyond the project consortium.

To know more about this project activity, please watch the video below.