TRANSFORMARTE (Mental health opportunities to adolescents in vulnerable groups)

Project Objective:

The main objective of the project is to provide wellness and mental health opportunities to adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 who are in high school in Rotary District 4130 and who are among the vulnerable groups in the 7 cities of the District (Matamoros, Reynosa, San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Victoria, Tampico and Monterrey). To achieve this, we will work together with the Centro de Psicología Cognitivo Conductual de Monterrey, (CPCCM) who have already developed over the years a model of evidence-based psychological care that addresses the psycho-emotional needs of this population. Specifically, this project considers the implementation of group workshops of the TRANSFORMARTE program which consists of 7 sessions of 2 hours per week in which the beneficiaries will learn to transform the 3 main axes of emotional well-being: Emotions, Thoughts and Interpersonal Relationships, thereby seeking to reduce the levels of anxiety, depression, behavioral problems in the classroom; as well as improve the ability to regulate emotions and have better communication skills both at group and family level. In addition, as a long term benefit and indirectly, the workshop helps to prevent other risk behaviors such as drug use and suicide. The workshop will be conducted by Psychologists trained by the CPCCM specialists in Evidence Based Therapies and residents of the cities where the program will be carried out and will be implemented through a manual created for this project that contains each of the sessions, activities and tasks to be carried out by the participants, which will allow measuring the results before and after the workshop.

Through the implementation of the workshops in the different cities of the district, a total of 320 adolescents will benefit directly. In addition to this, and with the objective of reaching more adolescents and their families, an art tour through District 4130 called “Labyrinth Transformarte”; will help raise awareness of the need for mental health care in young people and identify thoughts, emotions and interpersonal relationships that may be affected.

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Community Assessment:

On October 10, 2024 within the Framework of Mental Health Day WHO released the latest figures related to adolescent mental health globally:
• One in seven young people between the ages of 10 and 19 suffer from some type of mental disorder. These conditions account for 15% of the global burden of morbidity and mortality among adolescents.
• An estimated 4.4% of adolescents aged 10-14 years and 5.5% of adolescents aged 15-19 years suffer from an anxiety disorder, and 1.4% of adolescents aged 10-14 years and 3.2% of adolescents aged 15-19 years suffer from depression.
• Suicide is the third leading cause of death in 15-29 year olds.
• When an adolescent’s mental health disorder goes untreated, its consequences extend into adulthood, impairing their physical and mental health and limiting their chances of leading a fulfilling life in the future.

This underpins what in 2021, WHO promoted through the “Guidelines on mental health promotion and prevention interventions for adolescents: Strategies to help adolescents thrive”; in which countries are recommended to implement 5 strategies among which stand out: Recommendation A: “Universal psychosocial interventions targeting all adolescents should be offered. These interventions promote good mental health while preventing and reducing suicidal behavior, mental disorders (such as depression and anxiety), aggressive or oppositional problem behaviors, and substance use.”;

These interventions can be delivered in schools as they are easier to implement and less likely to cause stigmatization, compared to interventions that require participant screening. When delivered in schools, interventions can address several risk factors and help a large portion of adolescents while providing them with basic skills to promote mental health and prevent risky behaviors. In addition, psychosocial interventions have shown that it is crucial to intervene early in adolescents with emotional problems to prevent the progression of mental health problems and improve their life and health trajectories.

ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH IN MEXICO
According to 2020 Census data published by INEGI, in 2020 there were 504 thousand girls, boys and adolescents with a mental condition in Mexico; this represented 1.3% of the national population aged 0-17 years.
Of this population, 40.4% were female, with the remaining 59.6% being male. It is important to emphasize that the percentage of males between 0 and 17 years of age with a mental condition in the country was slightly higher than that of females of the same age (1.5% and 1.1%, respectively).

A worrying fact was that 114 thousand people with mental health conditions between 0 and 17 years of age (47 thousand women and 67 thousand men) were not affiliated to health services in Mexico during 2020; this corresponded to 22.6% of the population with mental health conditions in that age range.

The National Survey of Well-being reported that 50 percent of mental disorders in adults began during childhood, so it is important to address mental and emotional health issues at an early age.

The National Health Survey (ENSANUT, 2020), revealed that suicide is a serious problem in adolescents, with a significant increase in the suicide rate in young people aged 10 to 24 years, representing 17% of all suicides in Mexico. In the year 2020; 1,150 girls, boys or adolescents in Mexico decided to commit suicide, that is, an average of three cases per day, almost three times more than those registered by COVID-19.

By the year 2022, according to INEGI data, suicide rates among children (10 to 14 years old) and adolescents (15 to 19 years old) were 2.1 and 7.7 per 100,000, respectively.

FIGURES BY STATE
According to the 2020 INEGI CENSUS on mental health conditions in the states of District 4130 the results are as follows:

Number of young people between 15 and 17 years old with mental health problems:
Nuevo León 3,881
Tamaulipas 2,762
San Luis Potosí 2,364
Number of young people aged 15 to 17 without access to mental health services: Nuevo León 808
Tamaulipas 581
San Luis Potosí 407

In Nuevo Leon, the pandemic increased depression and anxiety problems in children and adolescents, with 13.5% of adolescents affected according to offcial figures from the State Health Secretariat.

In the case of Tamaulipas during the year 2023, the Ministry of Health detected 4,173 high school students at risk of suffering from some mental health disorder or consumption of prohibited substances, being the municipalities of the northern border of the state where these cases are most concentrated, being the city of Reynosa the one that leads these statistics, followed by Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad Victoria.

In the last 5 years the CPCCM has received an increase of 30% in the demand for psychological care of adolescents between 15-19 years who have problems of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation that impact both their personal life, their academic performance and their interpersonal relationships with family and friends.

In 2023, and given the detected need, the CPCCM creates the TRANSFORMATE program which was implemented in a high school in the municipality of Garcia Nuevo Leon sponsored by the Frisa Foundation and Ingenium ABP being the beginning of this program, obtaining results of a decrease of 48.6% in the rates of Depression, a decrease of 40.2% in the rates of Anxiety. An increase of 58% in the sense of life and will to live.

This project seeks to replicate the results obtained previously as well as to expand and generalize the results to populations in states neighboring Nuevo Leon.

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Project Design:

1.- Selection of the 500 Project Transformarte host teens and high schools in each city in the District.
2.- Creation of manuals to be used in the project for the 500 participants and 7 psychologists.
3.- Selection and training of the 7 psychologists who will implement the TRANSFORMARTE Program in each city.
4.- Implementation of the Transformarte workshops during 7 weeks in each city of the District 4130
5.- Supervision of the Transformarte program during the 7 weeks of implementation in each city of District 4130.
6.- Collect evidence and results of the implementation of the Transformarte workshops in each of the cities of district 4130.
7.- Art Labyrinth Tour in the 7 cities of District 4130

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Direct Beneficiaries:

Through the implementation of the workshops in the different cities of the district, a total of 320 adolescents will benefit directly. In addition to this, and with the objective of reaching more adolescents and their families, an art tour through District 4130 called “Labyrinth Transformarte”; will help raise awareness of the need for mental health care in young people and identify thoughts, emotions and interpersonal relationships that may be affected.

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Sustainability:

Within the TRANSFORMARTE project, an Art tour will be included in the 7 cities of District 4130 that will allow the general population to live an experience entitled: “The labyrinth of TRANSFORMARTE” where the general public will have the opportunity to go through a labyrinth that will allow them to Transform one of the 3 axes of emotional well-being: Emotions, Thoughts and/or interpersonal relationships, making them aware of the importance of mental health and to resort to the various institutions that exist in each city for psychological care if any of these axes fail.

The exhibition will remain for one week in each city of District 4130, allowing the public to immerse themselves in an exceptional exhibition that will culminate with a Rotary Transformarte Night. The tour will run from July 2026 to April 2027, ending with the 2027 District Convention, where the original collection and the graphic collection will be auctioned.

The Transformarte Tour will also help to promote on social networks and in the face-to-face events what Rotary Clubs do, how they are structured, the impact they have on the lives of each of the members, which can encourage membership in the club.

This will be reinforced with a comprehensive communication and socialization plan (Rotary messages about peace, attracting membership, donations to the Rotary Foundation and promoting Rotary’s good name) that will help strengthen the public image that Rotary represents for the community, consolidating with some messages the desired impact of this project.

Once the tour is over, the Labyrinth will be permanently displayed as part of a permanent exhibit in a museum or foundation in one of the host cities, which will allow for continued awareness of the issue.

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Collaborators:

CONALEP collaboration is because the majority of the children who study there are in vulnerable situations and live in priority care areas, making it more diffcult for them to access mental health care, in this case, preventive care.

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Evaluation and Monitoring:

Pendiente

Host Partner

International Partner (Optional)

Project Status