Mental health, a pending subject in the educational field

70% of mental health disorders begin in adolescence. But do young people have enough safe spaces and tools to talk about them at school, high school or university, where they experience most of their experiences?

Mental health stigma continues to be an unresolved issue in society and also in classrooms, where a stigma-free vision must be fostered and emotional well-being integrated across the curriculum. Adolescents and young people must be able to have a safe space where they can talk about mental health and ask for help when they need it.

He openly addresses the stigma of mental health in the educational field in the fourth episode of his podcast Les Primeres Persones , through the testimony of Eiden Andrés, mental health activist; Gemma Cantoni, head of the What's Up! project, and singer Cesc Triquell.

Eiden's testimony makes us reflect on the consequences of the shortcomings in educational centers to attend to children and adolescents who, like him, suffer in silence and find no support. Eiden remembers his years at school as a sad stage, in which "I was alone, isolated, suffering and surviving". At that time "I would never have imagined that I would reach the age of 26 as I am now, happy", but after going through a hospital admission, he began to talk about mental health , emotions, and learned that he was not alone, that they could help him. This boy, an activist for Obertament, denounces that at school " no one understands that you could be bad , there is a lot of misunderstanding, you have to keep quiet about everything and you have no one to refer to".

Eradicating microstigmas in mental health, everyone's job

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Precisely to promote these safe and trusting spaces in the classroom where young people can talk about mental health in a natural, normalized and stigma-free way , Obertament has promoted the project   "What's Up! How are you doing with your mental health?" This is explained by its manager, Gemma Cantoni , who warns that "prejudices in mental health are so internalized in all of us, that if you let your guard down, they come out again". Therefore, very intense work must be done, to begin with, with all teachers , who "must show their vulnerability, leave behind stigmatizing expressions and attitudes and work with students on emotional well-being and personal growth".

The last guest on the podcast is Cesc Triquell , a familiar face among young people for his participation in a television music program. Triquell shares his first-hand experience with mental health, and is very critical of school as a space where adolescents are encouraged and supported, which is why he invites people to seek help outside of this environment, in "an environment where you can talk without forcing anything." He also calls for the acceptance of mental health disorders as " a condition that you have to acclimatize to your life and not as a problem that needs to be overcome."

Check out the rest of the episodes of the podcast Les Primeres Persones .