News item | 08-04-2022 | 9:00 am
The Mental Health Youth Panel officially started this week. This happened in a brainstorming session together with State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen (VWS). The Youth Panel consists of about 20 young people who have an affinity with the theme of mental health. The aim is to have young people actively contribute ideas about prevention policy to improve the mental health of Dutch youth. At the same time, they are guided through training in their own development.
State Secretary Van Ooijen: “To strengthen the position of young people in our democracy, we have to think fundamentally differently about their involvement. Our starting point should be: not about young people, without young people. There are many young people walking around with very good ideas, which are not yet sufficiently heard. I am therefore pleased that the Mental Health Youth Panel has started. Our common goal is that as many young people as possible can recover mentally after the hard time they had during corona. And together we must build a future where young people can talk about mental health as easily as they can about physical health. The first brainstorming session immediately resulted in a nice harvest of ideas that we can work with further. I look forward to working with the Youth Panel to see how we can put this into practice.”
Youth panel
Last year, the National Youth Council (NJR), in collaboration with the then State Secretary of VWS, decided to set up a Youth Panel. The panel will focus on the question: how do we ensure that young people remain mentally healthy and feel good? They do this in close contact with the NJR, policymakers, researchers and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. In the first session, themes were discussed such as pressure to perform in society, attention to mental health and self-development at school and the removal of stigmas and taboos surrounding mental health problems.
The panel consists of about 20 young people from all over the Netherlands. The ages range from 17 to 25 years old. Most are still students at secondary school or at MBO/HBO/University and a few also work part-time or with a side job. They participate in the Youth Panel because they want to contribute ideas about how we can improve the prevention of mental health problems at a national level. In their role as panel member, they can proactively provide input on policy and policy implementation regarding mental health and also receive training to further develop themselves in that role.
Extra attention to mental health
The mental health of all Dutch people has suffered a lot during corona, but seems to have had the most impact by far on young people. During the corona period, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport has supported various local and national initiatives with the Youth Package (€ 58.5 million) and the Social and Mental Well-being and Lifestyle Support Package (€ 200 million), aimed at offering low-threshold mental help and organizing youth activities. But experts expect that the impact of the corona crisis will continue to affect some of these young people for some time to come. That is why State Secretary Van Ooijen will come up with an approach before the summer for improving the mental fitness of young people. The Mental Health Youth Panel is an important discussion partner for this.