<< Background >>According to UN’s Policy Brief: COVID-19 and the Need for Action on Mental Health (2020) approximately 70 per cent of mental health services for children and adolescents are disrupted. The impacts of disrupted services are compounded by young people missing out on peer support and some of the biggest moments of their lives due to school closures, cancelled events or postponed exams. Emotional difficulties are also increased by family stress, social isolation, with some facing increased abuse, disrupted education and uncertainty about their futures, occurring at critical points in their emotional development. All this points to the alarming need to support all those working with young people to gain basic knowledge on mental health of young people, particularly to provide support to recognize when to provide support, call on for the expert support and support of families and other structures in communities. According to the Final declaration of the 3rd European YW Convention (2020), youth work should develop to a stage where it can be a safety net for all young people in times of uncertainty. In the Declaration, MH promotion is seen as a crucial point in youth work. Youth workers should be empowered to carry on projects promoting and maintaining the MH of young people, particularly those facing intersectional and other vulnerabilities.According to the feedback from practice (youth workers) and academic and clinical experts, the gender difference is of particular interest as they described different self-destructive and destructive behaviour among girls and boys and difficulty to be of adequate support. Their statements are supported by existing research showing that during adolescence, girls have a much higher prevalence of depression and eating disorders, and engage more in suicidal ideation and suicide attempts than boys. On the other hand, boys experience more problems with anger, engage in high risk behaviours and commit suicide more frequently than girls. In general, adolescent girls are more prone to symptoms that are directed inwardly, while adolescent boys are more prone to act out (Gender and Mental health, WHO, 2002). All these issues are much more visible in the pandemic crisis. Another important conclusion from the policy reports in most EU countries is that mental health services are mainly targeted at children and/or grown-ups, while rarely are they tailored to the specific needs of adolescents and young people.<< Objectives >>The overall objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of youth workers in supporting young peoples’ mental health with focus on gender sensitive approach to mental health issues. The project primarily develops personal and social competences of youth workers to better understand and support children and youth’s mental health with special sensitivity for gender differences, as they seem to be a crucial factor in tailoring the mental health interventions for young people.The objectives of the project are: 1) Providing Policy analyses and recommendations related to young people’s mental health on EU and national level, with focus on the gender perspective; 2) Strengthening capacities of partner organizations and youth workers to adequately support young people's mental health; 3) Developing the gender sensitive tools for understanding and supporting one's own mental health for young people, and 4) Disseminating the developed knowledge and resources in 4 partner countries and on EU level. With implementation of this project, the partner organizations will have in their offer training for youth experts in improving young people’s mental health and available resources via the developed digital platform that is visibly promoted on their websites and social media and their local, regional and national networks of stakeholders in the youth sector. The capacity of the organizations will become stronger to promote and carry out mental health programs for and with young people while encompassing mental health issues young people of all genders have in the face of COVID-19 consequences. Youth workers participating in the project activities will become aware of how young people they work with cope with mental health issues and how best to support them on different levels: in direct work with them, on advocacy level, and also further building capacities of other youth workers by building the digital platform with all user friendly resources. Young people will have the opportunity to be co-informants of mental health situation for the policy report and also to participate in the testing of created training and Toolkit material thus becoming co-authors of all key project results and becoming more aware on their own and their peers mental health issues and hopefully continue to care for themselves and others in the times to come.<< Implementation >>The consortium consisted of 4 civil society organizations with complementary expertise in youth work and adolescent mental health, from Croatia (FFE), Greece (KMOP), Italy (CSC Danilo Dolci) and Serbia (CZOR) will implement a wide spectre of activities in order to develop intellectual results needed for achieving the project objectives. The activities are divided in 3 work packages: Project Management, The production of Project results and the Sharing and Promotion Activities. Besides four transnational partner meetings and one joint learning event (LTT), numerous meetings, collaborations and work sessions will take place in order for the project results to be developed. The consortium will conduct in each country national activities that will lead to the creation of PR1: Policy Analyses and Recommendations related to young people’s mental health on EU and national level, with focus on the gender perspective. These activities involve policy analyses, interviews, mapping the best practices and discovering the gaps, creating country specifics and comparative findings. In order to deliver the PR2: Gender sensitive Youth Mental Health Program and Toolkit Resources, the Consortium will exchange the knowledge and develop the resources necessary for creation of the Program Curriculum for youth workers in the area of Youth mental health, Handbook for youth workers and Workbook for young people, especially dedicated to deeper understanding of young women and men specific needs. The transnational learning event will gather 30 participants from the consortium organizations as well as young people, and will be aimed at deepening the understanding of the topic, as well as exchanging knowledge and best practices. In order to deliver the PR 3 Digital Platform Supporting young people's mental health, the digital platform will be established with all the resources and materials available in 5 languages, and each partner will accordingly participate in creating the national language content. With the aim of sharing and dissemination of project results, four multiplier events will be organized in each partner country including 120 participants but also the online promotion of project results. Each partner will use their promotion channels, dissemination practices, resources and policy influence to maximize the reach of the project results and achievement in their national contexts.<< Results >>The project will produce numerous insights, practice and scientific inputs, best practices, training curriculum and related publications as well as a digital platform with publicly available project results (PR). The PR1 is a POLICY ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATION ON YOUTH´ S MENTAL HEALTH GENDER SENSITIVE NEEDS, a document based on the policy analyses and field research in 4 partner countries, aimed at the decision and policy makers, but also the managers and experts in the field of youth mental health and youth work. It will inform the key persons and youth experts on the importance of gender sensitive approach to youth mental health, explain the difference we see in young women and men facing mental health issues and help them tailor and implement efficient policies and strategies to address the issues and provide the needed support systems. This will serve as a starting, evidence based point to achieve mutual understanding among EU members participating in the project (and more widely), to show which actions are necessary in the field of supporting young people's mental health and that dedication is needed to this topic. Also, the policy makers, experts and key players will receive valuable information on the importance of a gender sensitive approach to mental health, because the needs and issues of young women and men quite differ, and often the mental health messages and approaches are ignoring that fact.The PR2 is a GENDER SENSITIVE YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM AND TOOLKIT RESOURCES, a program curriculum and related publications for youth workers and young people. The program consists of: (a)Training curriculum with the description of the program, list of learning outcomes, list of references, duration and type of the certificate; (b) Handbook for youth workers consisted of three sections: (1) The importance of gender perspective on mental health of young people from developmental perspective; (2) Recommendations of mental health experts on what youth workers can do to provide better gender-sensitive support to young people; and (3) Gender-sensitive pedagogical tools and interventions in supporting young people’s mental health. The (c) Workbook for young people consisting of different self-reflective, informative and interactive handouts for young people to work through so they are appreciative of the importance of mental health and more caring for themselves and their peers. Through the developed Gender sensitive youth mental health program with toolkit resources all youth workers, youth experts and youth in the EU will have the most relevant and up to date program that corresponds to the detected needs of all involved target groups. As it will be disseminated through the PR3, it will reach not only youth workers and experts but also young people and give them resources to better understand their state, and also to have all necessary information on how to improve their mental health.The PR3, a DIGITAL PLATFORM YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH is the innovative interactive Digital platform that aims to tackle gender-sensitive mental health issues while applying an inclusive approach to all young people. The website platform will contain the RESEARCH AND POLICY SECTION (a compilation of up-to-date reports on the impact of COVID-19 on mental health of young people together with the identified good practices on policy and service level, and gender issues); TRAINING COURSES SECTION (with the program tested at national levels and designed during the testing phase with the collaboration of all youth workers and hub youth group (PR2); RESOURCES AND MATERIALS SECTION (with the digital materials, pedagogical resources, tools and instruments that partners and youth workers will develop and design during the project), INTERACTIVE OPEN SPACE AND COACHING SECTION will contain the Blog, forum discussions, material upload and audio podcast.