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Mission, Vision
| Our mission is to enhance the quality of life of adolescents aged 15-24 by encouraging the creation of stimulating environments and learning opportunities where they can fully explore and develop their physical, psychological and social skills and competencies, without undue injury risks. Our vision statement is: | |
Risk taking is fun: Better be safe than sorry!
Objectives
- Advocate the importance of injury prevention and safety promotion for adolescents aged 15-24 at both European and national level, and for consistency of policies and educational programmes used throughout Europe that impact on the safety of young people.
- Mediate the different interests in society regarding youth injury prevention and safety promotion with coordinated actions by all concerned: governments, health, and other social and economic sectors, nongovernmental and voluntary organisations, local authorities, business, and the media.
- Provide strategy recommendations and tools to different stakeholders to promote injury prevention among adolescents with specific focus on risk taking behaviour.
- Strengthen actions for empowering young people to cope with risks and to explore their potential without undue injury risks.
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Rationale
In Europe unintentional and intentional injuries account for 65 % of all deaths among adolescents. Injury is also the leading cause of hospitalisation in this age group accounting for 20 % of all visits to Accident & Emergency departments in most EU-Member States. For example, The mortality rate of adolescents in injuries (32/100 000) is lower than the mortality rate of the whole population (50/100 000) in 2005. In addition, the mortality rate of adolescents in attempted suicides (ranked second in the categories of causes of death among young people aged 15–24) and other causes of injury is also slightly higher than that of the whole population.
Figure 1: Mortality rate (1/100 000) among 15–24-year-olds in the EU25 (Eurostat, population and social conditions).
According to Eurostat, within the EU25 there are 58 million young people aged 15–24 which is 12.7 % of the total population. Road accidents, sport and leisure activities such as drowning, interpersonal violence, work related accidents and self-harm are the five main causes which have been identified. Whereas significant progress has been made in preventing injury deaths and disability in most other age groups, adolescents remain at excess risk from injury. For instance, for work injuries youth incidence rates are twice as high as that of adult employees. For traffic injuries, the rate of injury per kilometres driven is many times higher for adolescents than for adults and their susceptibility to alcohol intoxication related crashes is far higher than among adults. Inexperience, as well as physical, cognitive and emotional developmental characteristics play an important part in the risk of injury that youth are facing in their physical and social environments.
Figure 1: Figure: Mortality (%) among 15–24-year-olds in the EU25 in 2003 (Eurostat, population and social conditions).
Time for a new approach
By nature adolescents engage in lifestyles and activities that are challenging and thrilling. These experiences enable them to develop skills and competencies in a critical stage of their personal development. Therefore, stimulating environments in community and leisure settings are necessary to provide learning opportunities in view of helping adolescents develop skills and competencies that are essential in adult life.
Adolescents living in a transitory period of their lives and need tools to understand that their lifestyle and behaviour make them subject to risks, and therefore to injuries, and the accompanying burden. Adolescents need to be included in interventions in a strong participatory manner. Ideally, young people should be provided with arguments and tools to allow them to assess and cope with risk-taking in order to reduce the toll of injuries. | |
Many of the prevention programmes aimed at adolescents are repressive and see young people as passive subjects, failing to involve the target group in a constructive way. New approaches are needed to prevent injuries among young people. The AdRisk project intends to tackle injuries among adolescents by empowering young people to help themselves in making the right choice when dealing with risks.
Through the efforts of the AdRisk project we will advocate for a safer environment for adolescents throughout Europe and involve younger people more in creating a safer environment that continues to challenge their skills. AdRisk will help empower adolescents to make the right choices for themselves.
Scope
Adolescent’s high mortality and morbidity in injuries can be partly explained by their risk-taking behaviour and lifestyles which may include experimentation with and consumption of alcohol and drugs, and their vulnerability to violent acts and emotional crises. In order to understand the nature of risk-taking behaviour a thorough understanding is required of the problems and situations facing adolescents. Addressing this issue is at the heart of the AdRisk project. | |
The AdRisk project will facilitate and encourage national NGOs and youth-related agencies to develop national programmes for action on injury prevention among adolescents and integrate youth into existing programmes. Ultimately, the project will support the implementation of country programmes and activities that should contribute to reducing the high toll of injuries among adolescents in EU Member States and candidate countries.
Structure (WPs)
The work of the Ad-Risk project is divided into the following 6 working packages:
Work package n° 1 “Coordination of the project” (KfV-Vienna)
The coordinating office will provide the team with precise instructions as regards administrative and evaluative reporting duties, based on previous experience with European collaborative projects. The coordinating office will carry out all administrative work related to the entire project, with monthly monitoring of progress of work and the allocation of funds in accordance to progress reported. Regular telecalls and e-mail based communication and exchange of information will contribute to streamlining activities and facilitating rapid response to unforeseen conditions that might hinder the implementation of the project as originally conceived. The coordinator will ensure a firm and consolidated approach towards the overall project and its Work Packages.
Who is Who in this Workpackage?
Work package n° 2 “Dissemination of the results” (Ulss20 Verona)
This team will coordinate the proper dissemination of the products delivered by the project, basically developed under work packages 4, 5 and 6, in particular reports, technical guidebooks, manuals, audiovisuals and so on. Most publications will be made available in an electronic format that is easy to distribute at low cost. The different target groups and dissemination partners will be defined according to the project profile and approach and the methods of dissemination/ materials will be consequently adapted to the target audience. Through the developed website (www.adrisk.eu.com), the work package will promote the implementation of tools and guides delivered by the project and disseminate them as widely as possible.
Who is Who in this Workpackage?
Work package n° 3 “Evaluation of the project” (Hungarian NIPH)
The work will mainly focuse on the evaluation of the implementation process of this action driven project, as well as the internal resource mobilization, the assessment of the involvement of third parties in the implementation of actions and the resource mobilisation, and an overall evaluation of the achievements of the project and its components in terms of deliverables and outcomes (before starting and after termination of the project).
Who is Who in this Workpackage?
Work package n° 4 “Development of the European Situation Analysis Report” (Finnish NIPH)
The objective of this team is to produce a comprehensive European situation analysis of injury risks among adolescents and their prevention and to use the resulting report for developing an evidence-based national response to youth risk taking behaviour on behalf of the Member States. The main deliverable of this work package will be a document on the major injury risks adolescents (15-25 years) in Europe are exposed to, assessing the main determinants of risk exposure and identify models of good practices in injury prevention in adolescence. This report will be addressed to European and national authorities and interest groups that have a role to play in preventing predictable and avoidable injuries among adolescents.
Who is Who in this Workpackage?
Work package n° 5 “Strategy document” (KfV-Vienna)
The coordinator of the project is the leader of the package in charge of developing a strategy document, with the assistance of the WP leaders who have been involved in previous strategy development processes such as for the Working Party on Accidents and Injuries Strategy.
A consultation process, based on the recommendations gathered by work package 4, will be initiated. Experts, representatives of youth groups, international organisation representatives and EU policy makers will be invited and included in such a consultation in order to properly assess the perception and beliefs of young people with regard to safety issues and injurious risk taking behaviour. The national partners will be regularly consulted in order to fine-tune the choice of strategies and interventions according to their appropriateness, acceptability and effectiveness for the groups being targeted, as well as the availability of infrastructures and resources.
Who is Who in this Workpackage?
Work package n° 6 “Toolbox for campaign activities on youth injury prevention available” (CSI-The Netherlands)
The group will primarily focus on raising awareness on the issue of adolescents and their risk-taking behaviour among the relevant authorities, NGO’s and interest groups and on empowering these stakeholders (by providing them the tools) in developing an adequate response to the injury challenge by designing national programmes for prevention and promotional activities. General awareness raising efforts directed to the target group of adolescents will be a secondary spin off as a result of the campaign efforts, that is to say the expansion of a network of national partners dedicated to the AdRisk project and initialisation of European concerted actions addressing injury risks among adolescents in view of facilitating the process of reducing youth injuries in Member States.
Who is Who in this Workpackage?
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