Youth voices: A participatory approach to promoting mental health literacy through digital means

Abstract A concerning number of young people worldwide experience mental health challenges, often compounded by limited mental health literacy, such as a lack of knowledge about how to recognize mental disorders and strategies for seeking help (Cairns & Rossetto, 2019). Therefore, it is crucial to promote mental health literacy among youth. Due to the scarcity and often high cost of readily available mental health services, as well as concerns about anonymity, digital programs have become an alternative means of reaching youth. To this end, a digital prevention program was developed. The pivotal question now is how to effectively promote young people’s mental health literacy through digital means, more specifically: How to develop (1) evidence-based and (2) target group-specific content? To investigate these questions, two systematic reviews were conducted that analyzed a total of 65 digital evidence-based mental health programs. Since the active use of programs also depends on how suitable and appealing the content is for the target group, a participatory approach was chosen to actively involve the target group in the process of developing the program’s design and content. Therefore, four participatory workshops were conducted in Slovenia, Poland, and Austria, with 12-15-year-old students (N = 182). Selected results from the systematic reviews and cross-national results from the workshops will be presented. It was found that psychoeducation is an important and effective method for promoting mental health literacy among youth and that young people prefer this content to be delivered as briefly and concisely as possible, and in a multimodal format. The discussion will highlight key takeaways regarding the benefits and challenges of this approach, emphasizing the necessity of including student voices in the creation of psychoeducational content for a digital mental health program in order to highlight and recognize young people’s right to participate. Key messages • The value of youth participation - Involving young people in the development of content for a digital mental health literacy program is a means to increase its relevance and appeal to them. • The intricacies of youth participation - Involving young people in the development of a digital mental health literacy program presents challenges that require careful consideration.