Developing the European Career Counselling Toolkit for young people with mental health problems

30th October 2020 international project “AN INNOVATIVE MODEL FOR CAREER COUNSELLING SERVICES TO MENTAL HEALTH NEETS[1]“ (Work4Psy) meeting was held online, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic severe restrictions.

Partners discussed the development of the project intellectual product - European Career Counselling MH NEETs Toolkit, which will provide people with mental health problems useful material and tools helping to find a job and remain active in the labour market, tools to enhance MH NEETs work and education integration.

The toolkit is also aimed at the career counsellors, mental health professionals, informal carers (family members and friends of people with mental health problems) - individuals who can make a significant contribution to helping young people to improve their skills, increase motivation, self-confidence, support employment, work.

MH NEET‘s often do not study, have no education and are dependent on other people or state benefits. Young person with mental health problems faces social barriers for active participation in society, health system problems, discrimination and stigma, feelings of isolation and immobility, and so on.

Having a job is a very important factor for young people with mental health problems to increase self-esteem, empowerment in the labour market gives them more opportunities to control their life or situation. Empowering young people is essentially about creating the conditions for them to improve themselves and their talents and to take an active part in socio-economic life and the labour market.

The toolkit for MH NEETs for work and education integration has 7 units:

1. Knowledge gaps - an overview of the importance of job counselling and supportive employment for the NEETs.
2. Career interventions for mental health service users in partner countries (Germany, Italy, Poland, Greece).
3. Working (and networking) with the labour market - the necessity of networking, a guide for networking (practical advice), the perspective of employers.
4. Discrimination and stigma - discrimination and stigma in mental health, in workplace,  prevailing stereotypes, fighting stigma.
5. Empowering mental health service users - recovery and mental health, recovery in young people.
6. Working with family and informal carers - the relatives role in helping young people with mental health problems to get to know themselves better, to identify their strengths and weaknesses, to refine their goals, to pursue education, to integrate into the labour market.
7. Tools and Activities - practical tasks for each project target group: MH NEETs, career counsellors, mental health professionals, family members and friends.

Each unit includes an overview, learning outcomes, exercises, bibliography, links to additional resources.

The toolkit will be available in 5 languages (EN, IT, DE, PL, GR) online from on July 2021.

In addition there will prepared curriculum that will provide the didactical framework for using the toolkit, also an open learning platform, that will provide access to interactive career guidance tools, additional resources needed for MH NEETs to integrate into work and education.

The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

For more information please visit project website work4psy.eu