Stronger Youth Project. Adolescent Mental Health in Portugal: Needs and Strenghts. National Report

Abstract

The project “Stronger Youth”-Empowering young people social competences and soft skills through peer mentoring” highlight the urgency of addressing the issue of mental health among adolescents. It aims to provide a methodology and complete toolkit for conducting peer mentoring to prevent depressive behaviors and social exclusion among young people, and involves partners from six european countries (Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Spain). This document reports two research activities, namely a bibliographic and empirical research on adolescents’ mental health problems and resources, conducted by the Portuguese team about Portuguese adolescents. The bibliographic research was conceived to bring information and scientific evidence already produced within the scientific community about the Portuguese adolescents, and the empirical research to provide new and more specific information collected from Portuguese adolescents. Each partner conducted similar research in their own countries.