What happens when mental health awareness among young people increases and becomes the norm? And how can we ensure this translates into positive change? On March 30th, we will engage in this dialogue. Register now for the thought-provoking colloquium “Mental Health Awareness: Check! – What’s Next?!”.

The growing attention to mental health among young people has made important progress. More young people feel like they can speak up, stigma on mental health is decreasing, and support is increasingly recognized as essential. This momentum opens the door to crucial next questions: what happens when awareness becomes the norm? And how do we ensure awareness translates into positive change, both for individuals and in the structures around them? 

Our research with young people and school personnel reveals that despite increased awareness, there are still significant barriers to seeking help and opening up. We also see tensions emerging: between talking and taking action, between individual responsibility and structural challenges, and between normalizing struggles and pathologizing everyday experiences. These tensions don’t represent failure; they signal that we’re entering a new phase that requires deeper reflection.  

As a transdisciplinary initiative, we believe these developments can only be understood by bringing different perspectives together. This colloquium is a moment to reflect together on what we’ve learned and where we go from here. 

Keynote speaker Prof. Anette Wickström (Linköping University, Sweden) will share thought-provoking insights in her talk ‘Between metrics and meaning: Survey practices, young people’s perspectives, and looping effects of psychiatric labels’, examining how the ways we measure and talk about mental health shape young people’s experiences. 

Healthy Start researchers Eva Borkhuis and Yara Toenders will present findings from their research on how young people and school personnel themselves view mental well-being, including what they see as helpful and what they find missing. What does mental well-being mean to them? What matters most? In what way and under which conditions do they find talking about mental well-being helpful? 

This will be followed by a panel discussion with experts from different fields, see the names below. The panel discussion will explore the promises and pitfalls of the growing attention to young people’s mental health. The input of the audience will be taken into account. We’ll close with drinks and continued conversation. 

The event will be held in English.

The programme

The afternoon will be chaired by Robin Smits.

Keynote
Between metrics and meaning: Survey practices, young people’s perspectives, and looping effects of psychiatric labels 

In recent decades, media coverage and research have consistently pointed to a significant decline in young people’s mental health, especially among girls. The notion of a crisis has become deeply embedded in public discourse, embraced by policymakers, professionals, and the public.

However, when mental health is assessed through standardized screening scales, a gap emerges between different narratives about young people’s mental well-being. On one hand, we see a narrow narrative focused on symptoms, directing attention toward the individual. On the other hand, we encounter young people’s complex narratives, rooted in everyday life and shaped by their social contexts.

In my talk, I draw inspiration from science and technology studies, medical sociology, and interdisciplinary childhood studies to examine how screening practices have come to define the dominant image of youth mental health. As a counterpoint, I present interview-based analyses of how young people themselves understand the causes of their distress and the consequences of this narrative gap. Among other things, the talk highlights insights into how psychiatric labels are taken up and reinterpreted by young people, not primarily as diagnostic tools, but as cultural categories that represent the realities they navigate in their everyday lives.

Panel discussion

Wanda Tempelaar is a child and adolescent psychiatrist. She conducts research on the development of mental health problems and the factors that contribute to risk and resilience.

Maartje van den Essenburg is an educational psychologist and project leader for Youth Mental Health at the Trimbos Institute. Within Trimbos, her focus includes well-being at school.

Pim van den Dool is a board member of the National Youth Council (NJR). He is committed to ensuring that young people’s voices are heard, enabling them to participate in decision-making on issues that affect them.

Amine Bakkali is a project leader at MIND Us. His work focuses on the online world in which young people interact.

Speakers

		Prof. Anette Wickström Anette Wickström is a Professor of Child Studies at Linköping University, Sweden. Her research lies at the intersection of sociology, anthropology, and child studies. She explores how young people engage with psychiatric labels and health-promoting interventions, and how they make sense of wellbeing questionnaires and other tools shaping everyday life.
		Yara Toenders Yara is the Healthy Start Fellow for the ambition ‘Mental Wellbeing of Youth’. She researches different aspects of mental welIbeing – from the (neuro)biological level to subjective experience using co-creation techniques. In her research she focusses on positive factors that might empower young people and their surroundings, to improve youth’s mental wellbeing. For example, she studies the importance of role models, the effect of smartphone bans and the effect of music. She collaborates with partners such as MIND Us, Trimbos and NJi to include the societal perspective.
		Eva Borkhuis Eva is one of our PhD candidates for the Healthy Start ambition ‘Mental well-being of youth’. Her research explores the most important factors that influence mental well-being of youth in the Netherlands. She employs a bottom-up, holistic approach by exploring youth perspectives: how children and adolescents define and perceive mental well-being and what (environmental) challenges and resources they identify as impacting their mental well-being. Eva uses methods such as literature reviews, focus groups, co-creation, and co-analyses.
		Robin Smits Robin is a social designer working especially on projects with youth for the Erasmus University. Through designing for participation and making interventions tangible, she aims to facilitate social change. Having studied Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology, she is always open to brainstorming on various topics or collaborating in co-creation sessions.As a researcher, she mainly focuses on topics related to mental well-being and sexuality, collaborating with young people in various ways to understand their perspectives on sensitive issues. In her work, Robin collaborates with external partners such as Trimbos, SOL, JOZ and high schools, as well as being a sex education teacher herself.
		Kayla Green Kayla Green is a postdoctoral researcher in the Erasmus SYNC LabOpent extern and Practor Equal Opportunities at AlbedaOpent extern.Green studies the interplay between brain development and mental health and wellbeing in adolescence and young adulthood. Her work focuses on how adolescents and young adults grow up in a complex and rapidly changing world, marked by various societal challenges (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, poverty). She specifically examines how adolescent and young adult wellbeing is shaped by socioeconomic hardship and future uncertainty. Which vulnerabilities put some adolescents at risk to be disproportionably hit by societal challenges, and are there protective factors that might buffer against the potential negative impact on wellbeing. Green aims to shed light on how the developing brain adapts to challenges in the social environment, and how such neural changes may foster resilience.

Location and accessibility

The colloquium will take place at Oase in Rotterdam (Schiehaven 15-A, Rotterdam)

Take the metro to Delfshaven or Coolhaven, tram 8 to Schiemond, or the water taxi to Schiemond (75). From the stop, it’s about a 5-minute walk.

Paid parking is available at OASE from Monday to Saturday, 9:00 AM to 11:00 PM, and Sunday, 12:00 PM to 11:00 PM (zone 580, €2.24 per hour). The Q-park parking garage (Schiecentrale) is also nearby. It’s about a 5-minute walk from OASE.

Healthy Start colloquium series

This colloquium is linked to our ambitious project “‘Mental well-being of youth” and is part of the Healthy Start colloquia series. Each event in the series is organized by one of the Healthy Start ambition teams and showcases the latest developments and breakthroughs in our field.

Registration form 

Are you excited and eager to attend our fantastic colloquium? Register below before 12th of March 2026.