IYNF's Year of Mental Health

Looking back on the 2022 cycle “Let’s Get Outta Here – Outdoor Education as the Path to Mental Health” IYNF tackled one of the most important topics in our current times, the support of the mental health of young people. By hosting activities in Greece, Romania, and Czechia we managed to create more awareness of the mental health benefits of outdoor education.

Our first activity in 2022 “Youth and Mental Health” was located in Greece, where participants from all over Europe gathered to lay the foundation for the whole cycle. The activity in March was used as introductory training on the topic of strengthening resilience and supporting mental health in youth work by using outdoor education methods. The venue was located outside Athens and gave a perfect atmosphere.

We further moved on to our second activity in the rural areas of Romania. This project in May was when our Mental Health Toolkit “Take Me Outside” was born. Surrounded by mountains, cows, and pigs, the participants got to explore the 7C´s of resilience which became the base of our toolkit. They experienced the difference between doing activities outside in nature versus inside a venue.

In August we followed up with the “Advisory Team Action” which was created to help participants from our activities in Greece and Romania to prepare for their advisory sessions where the end goal was to present our toolkit to different organizations who work with youth.

The final activity was located in Czechia, close to our office in Prague. The venue was surrounded by a beautiful autumnal-colored forest and the participants got to tackle mental health, resilience, and outdoor education one last time. The participants worked, played, and hiked throughout the week and ended the activity with a movie night showcasing statement videos claiming more mental health awareness in educational frameworks. The videos can be found on our youtube channel.

by IYNF Secretariat