In most parts of the Western World we experience an increase in antidepressives and psychiatric treatment in adolescents and a rapid rise in symptoms such as stress, anxiety and cutting. This generation of young people lack resilience in a way that sidetracks them in medical treatments and psychiatric therapy instead of completing education and journey into careers and steady income.

We see these occurances in Denmark as well. In Denmark one third of a vintage has neither begun nor completed a youth education at the age of 21. A large number drops out during their youth education and that leaves a large part of an entire generation that has been sidetracked for several years, often umemployed or in one kind of wellfare program or another.

The Ph.D.-project that I commenced in August 2015 at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, examines how we can intervene to build more resilience and self-efficacy in adolescents. The intervention that I have chosen to examine is a life proficiency program, “Ready for Life”, based on a positive psychological approach, that is divided into these six themes:

• Personal strengths
• Self-reflection and –evaluation
• Values and choices
• Responsibility and respect
• Resilience
• Targetsetting

With 36-40 lessons and a variety of cognitive and phenomenological exercises the program has found its way into not only schools, but youth education, job centers, drug treatment, housing projects and even projects for diagnosed adolescents and youngsters.

I am following a total of 350 adolescents completing their high school within the next year where they will be following the 40 lessons of the “Ready for Life” programme. I’ve trained teachers and guidance counselors that will be an important source for these young people’s educational choices very soon. 

By establishing this common frame around the adolescents I mean to align and qualify this year’s life proficiency education, guidance counselor’s educational advice and the school system’s ability to target each student’s individual strength profile in order to make an educational choice where the students more probably will experience flow and energy, rather than stress and the sensation that studies drain them. 

Using Mixed Methods I measure the state of well-being, self perception and optimism level before, during and after the programme and monitore these young people’s educational choices. I mean to evaluate the effectiveness of these educational choices and eventually evaluate the success by monitoring the ratio of dropouts and the speed with which the students complete their youth education.

By June 2017 I will have the results of the first ”after”-questionnaires and will gladly share them at the ECER 2017 within the field of "Children and Youth at Risk". Besides the preliminary results of the research I would love to share and introduce the actual tools and exercises in a workshop for Applied Positive Psychology.

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