In Finnish society, as well as in the Nordic countries more widely, we are concerned about the “mental health crisis” among young people. However, the discussion on young people’s mental health is adult-centered, and we do not know how young people themselves perceive mental health problems and how they interpret the societal pressures in their own lives or in the lives of other young people.
Therefore, we study these questions from the perspective of critical youth research and together with young people from different backgrounds. We see, that individual-centered, empowering, diagnosing, or partly blaming interventions are not enough, but attention should be paid more broadly to the social phenomena that underlie young people’s mental health. Moreover, in the study, we utilise classical sociological thinking on how social arrangements are reflected in people’s experiences and how they can cause suffering and problems in young people’s lives, which they try to solve in different ways.
In Under Pressure, young people’s expertise and participation in social debate related to the pressures experienced by young people and mental health problems are seen as an important question for building a sustainable society. Our goal is to produce solutions to support the well-being of young people that focus on young people’s perspectives.
Our research approach is qualitative, and we examine the topic through creative methods and co-research together with young people and with an extensive network of educational institutions and NGO partners.
The research is funded by the Brita Maria Renlund Memorial Foundation.