Our new Digital Handbook Launched on SALTO YOUTH!

This Hand book is a youth-centred resource on which the Video game for promoting mental health we are working on is based.

• Improve adolescent mental health literacy

  Help adults who work with youth—youth workers, educators, parents—recognize early signs of distress

• Promote resilience, healthy habits, coping strategies

• Use engaging storytelling and interactive scenarios (via the videogame) to bridge theory and lived experience
  

The handbook is freely downloadable in PDF form. salto-youth.net

The Co-Creation Process & Stakeholder Feedback

From the beginning, InnerWorlds was never meant to be a top-down handbook. We co-created it with those who know best: those working every day with young people, and young people themselves. Specifically:

• In each partner country (Austria, Cyprus, Spain, Romania) we consulted at least two stakeholders—people who are active youth workers, educators, mental health professionals, or similar. Their input helped shape the content, clarify difficult concepts, and ensure relevance.

• These stakeholders contributed ideas, corrections, and practical suggestions to ensure the material reflects what actually happens in real life (for example, common situations young people face, what works in practice, what support is realistic, etc.).

• Feedback was drawn from lived experience—people engaged in daily work with adolescents provided insights, shared challenges, stories, and suggestions that helped us adapt the language, examples, and tools.

This co-creation and iterative consultation helped ensure the handbook is accessible, usable, and grounded in reality.

Why It Matters

Adolescence is a time of rapid change — neurologically, socially, emotionally — and yet many young people (and the adults around them) struggle to understand what’s happening, when help might be needed, or how best to offer support. The handbook helps fill several gaps:

1. Mental health literacy — giving young people and those supporting them clearer knowledge of what mental health involves, what signs to watch for.

2. Early recognition & prevention — being able to notice early distress can make a big difference; interventions tend to work better when they come earlier.

3. Coping & resilience — it’s one thing to understand problems, another to have strategies to deal with them. The handbook + game help with tools, reflection, and practice.

4. Reducing stigma — openness in conversations about emotions, distress, mental health challenges can reduce shame and fear around seeking help.
   

How to Use It

• Youth workers, educators, school counsellors, and mental health professionals can use the handbook as a basis for workshops, group discussions, or one-to-one support.

• Parents/caregivers can use it to better understand what adolescents may be going through, and how to provide supportive environments or know when to seek help.

• Young people can use parts of it directly, especially alongside or through the videogame element, to reflect on scenarios, practise coping strategies in safe, interactive ways.
  

What’s Next

• The videogame component is still in development and scheduled for completion in March 2026.

• In the meantime, the handbook stands as a key deliverable—something available now to be used, tested, adapted. As such, we will translate it to German, Spanish, Greek and Romanian later as well.

• We hope to continue gathering feedback from those using the handbook, to refine later versions or complementary materials.

A Resource for Youth Workers & Young People