Love is the best high: a course in preventive health care

Target groups

Staff at secondary and upper secondary schools, at youth centers and regional youth centers and others who conduct organised activities for young people.

The training is done in Swedish. 

Course objectives

The main purpose of the course is to prevent and detect early stages of poor mental health, bullying and suicide among adolescents and to teach them how to deal with crises, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts and thereby increase their self-esteem.

The course will further contribute to:

• Provide knowledge of medical, psychosomatic and psychological symptoms
• Provide information on various factors that underlie suicidal thoughts, suicidal behaviors and suicide attempts among adolescents
• Provide information about the characteristics of depression among adolescents
• Provide information on different treatment methods and how staff support, teacher support and peer support can be built up
• To prepare educational activities among parents and adolescents in the above areas based on the film

Content

• Statistical description of the current situation for young people in Sweden compared to international data.
• Recognition of depression in children and adolescents.
• How stress, bullying and identity can affect the mental health among adolescents.
• Young people's suicidal thoughts, suicidal acts and suicide attempts based on different vulnerability models, as well as suicide risks in young people.
• What school staff and/or other staff groups can do after a suicide attempt as well as preventative measures in the form of various action plans.

Teaching

The training covers 1½ day. The starting point is the movie "Love is the best high". The content of the course will be communicated through lectures and group discussions. The teaching is problem-based and is based on the participants' own experiences of teenagers and their mental health. In order to best utilize the content and also have the opportunity to work with the teaching materials within their own activities, it is recommended that at least two people from the same workplace participate in the training. We also recommend that someone responsible for education at the school participate to make it easier for them to be incorporated into the various programs.