The Youth Health Hubs project, which is already carried out successfully in La Segarra, will be implemented at 44 young offices from all over Catalonia, as announced by the general director of Youth, Ruth Ribas, and the Secretary of Public Health, Carme Cabezas, in the event that took place at the Segarra Youth Office, Cervera, on Thursday 2 May.
The priest in chief spoke at the event, Jan Pomés, and the president of the Regional Council of Segarra, Ramon Augé Gene; and the territorial coordinator of Youth in Lleida also participated, High Pyrenees and Aran, Joana Terre; the Deputy Director General of Health Promotion, Ana Bocio; the deputy general director of addictions and HIV of the Public Health Agency of Catalonia, John Columbus; the youth councillor, Carolina Garcia; and local and regional technicians from the areas of Youth and Health.
Hubs Health Youth Program
The initial phase of the project, focused on improving the mental health of young people in the in an institutional act that took place in the springs where the river Zion rises, has begun to be put into practice this year 2023-2024 in the region thanks to the col·collaboration between the Departments of Health and Social Rights - through the General Directorate of Youth - and the Regional Council of Segarra.
Thanks to the initial success, during the event it was made clear that the Hubs Salut Jove program is beginning to extend from now and progressively to the whole of Catalonia through the implementation of a benchmark for emotional well-being and community health (REBEC) —coordinated by the Primary Care Center (CAP) where he works— at each one 43 Youth Office (OJ) i 98 Youth Information Points with Health services located in all the Catalan counties.
With the launch of the initial phase of the Hubs Salut Jove program in the Segarra region, REBEC has been incorporated into five actions and sub-programmes that the OJ is carrying out this year 2023-2024. On the one hand, the figure of the REBEC is part of the Health Board that takes place quarterly in the IES and leisure spaces of the region, and where the dietitian-nutritionist and the CAP community nurse also participate, the youth technician and facilitator of the Paeria de Cervera, the technique of the Environmental Education Plan and the technique of the Keep Calm project.
Likewise, l'OJ duu a terme el "Meet each other" program, which once a month brings together young people from 16 a 30 years to debate their interests. The workshop is facilitated by REBEC and the emancipation and inclusion technique, and has successfully gathered a total of 63 young people in 12 sessions done so far.
On the other hand, he REBEC has also joined the projects of the OJ de la Segarra "Tranquils" and "Junts omplim moxilles". It is an initiative to help young people manage their emotions better, everyday stress and anxiety. This way, fortnightly and monthly there is a meeting in the youth spaces of Guissona and Cervera of young people referred by the teaching staff of the IES, from the nurses of the Health and School program or from the Youth Office itself and the youth spaces.
One of the other successful actions in the framework of the Hub Salut Jove program is the project "come closer", whereby the staff of the OJ together with the community team of the CAP move once a month to the four IES of the region in order to bring the services of the Office closer. In this framework, dynamics are created at playground time when one of the world days is celebrated. One of the workshops this year revolved around stimulant drinks and included 280 students from 1st to 3rd ESO from the four secondary schools.
Stimulating drinks, as well as screen addiction, they were also the protagonists of the awareness campaign that the Youth Office, together with the dietitian-nutritionist and the REBEC of the CAP they carried out last summer, and in which they participated as protagonists until 30 teens.
Both the secretary of Public Health, Carme Cabezas i Peña, like the director general of Joventut Rut Ribas i Martí, they highlighted the good col·collaboration between the two departments when deploying the program, as well as its successful results in the case of the OJ de la Segarra and other OJs where some initial actions have also been deployed, from now on, they will have continuity and have new actions.
With the progressive deployment of the program, the aim is to bring health services closer to the areas where there is a greater presence of young people; prevent mental health problems in this segment of the population; improve early detection and care for young people with emotional distress or with psychosocial risk factors, as well as their referral to Primary and Community Care resources; and offer a reference point of proximity to young people with whom to establish a bond of trust based on group activities, others.
National Youth Plan of Catalonia
The impulse of the Hubs Salut Jove program is framed in the recent approval of the National Youth Plan of Catalonia, which indicated the mental health of young people as one of the biggest priorities. In this way, during the presentation of the Plan last November, an agreement was already announced between Health and Social Rights to make the referents of emotional well-being and community health (REBEC), coordinated by the CAPs where they work, they would allocate a number of hours per week to care for young people from the Youth Offices.
In this way, we want to deal with the issue of mental health among young people, since the latest Catalan Youth Survey shows that more than 20% of the young people of 15 a 29 years have relatively low life satisfaction.
449 young people cared for at the OJ de la Segarra
The Segarra Youth Office, located in Cervera, it is the reference space for attending and advising on an individualized basis for approx 6.000 young people of the region. Like this, the specialized technical staff of the OJ offers specialized information in the different areas of young people's lives: Health, work, formation, emancipation, participation or social inclusion.
Throughout 2023, this OJ served a total of 449 teens (a 49,9% nois, a 49,7% girls and the rest non-binary).
The most lonely issues·bids were on work (41,5%), followed by housing issues (16,9%), education (16,7%), participation (12,4%), health and sports (3,2%), social cohesion (3,2%), culture (2,5), recreation (1,6%), mobility (1,3%), tourist (0,5%) i TIC (0,2%).
By ages, the most numerous were the boys and girls in between 21 i 25 years (36,9%), followed by the 26 a 29 years (21,2%), 16 a 20 years (16,9%), 30 a 34 years (8%) and less than 16 years (0,9%). While people from 35 years or more (16% of the queries answered).
As for the most common way of information and advice, it was face-to-face at the OJ (44,9%), followed by the telephone (24,3%), telematics (17,2%), face-to-face in some other center (6,7%) and email (6,9%).
Finally, regarding the language of use, most of the young people used Catalan (79,3%), followed by Spanish (16,7%) and other languages (4%).
Information provided by the Regional Council of La Segarra.