Adolescent Mental Health Hub Community Events
Recordings, recaps and resources from past hub community events
This page is your one-stop catch-up spot for past hub community events. You’ll find webinar recordings, event recaps, slides, and other resources—organized so you can quickly get the key takeaways, revisit what mattered, and share materials with your team. Whether you missed a session or want to go deeper, everything lives here.
Webinars
Webinars
This webinar showcased how arts, sports, and play have been used to support the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children and young people in educational settings. Drawing on examples presented at the Bold Ideas for Brighter Futures (BIBF) Conference, speakers shared evidence-informed interventions from diverse contexts and discussed lessons learned from their design, adaptation, and implementation. The session highlighted practical approaches for strengthening school-based mental health and psychosocial support through engaging, inclusive, and developmentally appropriate interventions.
Schools play a critical role in promoting the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children and young people. Drawing on experiences shared during the Bold Ideas for Brighter Futures (BIBF) Conference, this webinar explored how governments and partners can design, strengthen, and implement school-based mental health and psychosocial support policies and programmes at scale.
Speakers discussed key enablers, challenges, and practical strategies for translating evidence into action, ensuring that all children and young people have access to supportive learning environments that promote wellbeing and help them thrive.
Schools are a vital part of the ecosystem supporting the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children and young people. As central institutions in their lives, they provide structured and supportive environments where mental health can be promoted, stigma reduced, and challenges identified and addressed early.
Schools and other learning spaces have the potential to foster positive peer and teacher relationships, strengthen mental health literacy, and create safe, inclusive environments that help mitigate stress and challenges experienced by children and adolescents.
This webinar brought together voices from the field to share practical experiences and insights on how education systems are advancing mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS).
Speakers include:
• Urmila Sarkar, Senior Adviser, Education, UNICEF
• Kelly Rose-Clarke, University College London (Lancet Commission on School-based Mental Health)
• Tara O’Connell (TBC), Chief of Education, UNICEF Vietnam
• Hanna Yoshimoto, Chief of Education, UNICEF South Africa
• Dr Zeinab Hijazi, Senior Adviser & Global Mental Health Lead, UNICEF HQ
Moderator: Rafa Souza, Youth Advisor from Brazil
The Adolescent Girls and Mental Health webinar brought together practitioners and youth advocates to (1) set the global context for adolescent mental health with an explicit gender lens, (2) share practical country examples, and (3) surface reflections to inform future policy and programming.
What’s covered
- Why a girls-specific lens matters for adolescent mental health
- Three country examples of programming:
- Girl-centered mental health podcast (Equatorial Guinea)
- Support for pregnant & parenting adolescents (Lesotho)
- Inclusive sports-for-girls programming linked to mental health learning (Pakistan)
- Facilitated discussion/Q&A on what helps accelerate action
- Introduction to the Adolescent Mental Health Hub + ways to stay involved
Co-hosted with the Youth-Led Action Initiative, this is a recording for the webinar for the launch of the Training Toolkit on Supporting the Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing of Young Changemakers; a resource that provides the roadmap for skilled facilitators to deliver an online training to young changemakers to equip them with the knowledge, skills, and supports to protect and promote their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing.
Learning Circles
The UNICEF Adolescent Mental Health Hub and the MHPSS Collaborative have launched an exciting new community events series called Learning Circles.