British Reporter — The coronavirus pandemic is having a significant impact on young people’s mental health. Youth care researcher Levi van Dam suggest with international colleagues that mentors chosen by young people themselves from their own social environment could be used to help them. Van Dam and his colleagues set out the tried and tested benefits of this form of support in the leading scientific journal ‘JAMA Psychiatry’, University of Amsterdam notes.
Various studies alarmingly report the major impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the mental health of young people and increased loneliness, depression and anxiety. It’s not only youth care and mental health care professionals that can help in this regard, say Van Dam and his colleagues, young people’s social networks can also be used as a buffer to help them.
A mentor from their own social environment
Youth care researcher Levi van Dam specialises in research around Youth Initiated Mentoring (YIM). In this form of mentoring, young people and their families are helped to find a mentor in their own social environment. This mentor and the young person concerned are supported by professionals to work towards a specific goal. For example, if the young person in question lives in an unsafe environment, the goal would be safety, or if there is a possibility of the young person being placed in care, the goal would be preventing this from happening. Collaboration with other professionals who are involved with the young person also plays a key role in this programme, according to University of Amsterdam.
Publication details
Levi van Dam, Jean Rhodes, Renée Spencer: Youth-Initiated Mentoring as a Scalable Approach to Addressing Mental Health Problems During the COVID-19 Crisis, in: JAMA Psychiatry
