European Parliament report calls to mitigate mental health consequences of Covid lockdowns for young people

The report acknowledges and recognises mental health issues that children and adolescents face in Europe post-Covid. Most address this, it

• recognises the importance on in-person interactions facilitates through schools, sports centres and youth clubs and notes that the inclusion of arts, culture, music and sport in the school curriculums prove to lead to healthy learning environments, which encourage mental wellbeing.
• calls for investments for early childhood education and care facilities, cultural and sports activities to improve the educational and psychological development of children and youngsters.
• in particular urges to improve early detection and prevention of phyco-social distress through school psychologists and staff for special educational needs.

As a consequence, it

• calls for adequate and sufficient access to positive educational, cultural, youth and sports experiences to be promoted, despite regional economic disparities between countries.
• emphasises the role of communities, towns and regions could play in making available sufficient funds for educational or sports, cultural institutions. Notably, the report makes reference to the 13% Recovery and Resilience Facility envelope, worth 63 billion EUR, which should go for supporting education and skills, while highlighting that budget allocations should take into account socio-economic and regional disparities.
• stresses the importance of further measures and investments in the support and training of teachers and educators in school-based mental health prevention and management processes.

CESI Youth Representative Matthäus Fandrejewski said: “The European Parliament’s report is a step in the right direction to acknowledge a root cause of major mental distress among many young people. This year, during the European Year of Youth 2022, we should all do our best to address the issue of mental health of the youth immediately. Serious national-wide mental health awareness campaigns and programs should be set in place in order to avoid further deterioration of mental health for youngsters.”

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “The European Parliament’s report rightfully brings mental health problems of young people as a result of Covid lockdowns to the political agenda. Following the pandemic and consecutive lockdowns, young people worldwide show increasing signs of mental distress:higher rates of stress, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and isolation. Recent estimates of the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate that 1 in 7 of all young people (10-19 year-olds) experience mental health conditions but that these remain largely unrecognized and untreated. Suicide is the 4th leading cause for death among 15-19 year-olds. For Europe, the European Youth Forum assessed that nearly 2 out of 3 young people may be affected by mental health and wellbeing issues and around half of the young people (48.8%) possibly suffer from either anxiety or depression.”