Best practices catalogue, Healthy Boxxx, Austria

The Healthy Boxxx is an information and method kit containing materials on a wide range of health topics. The Boxxx contains information material, games and exercises on mental and physical health that are suitable for young people and can be used by young people alone, in a group, with or without a youth worker. The aim of the method is to empower and motivate young people to make healthier choices in their everyday lives. Not only is a large part of the Boxxx dedicated to mental health, but it is also considered as a cross-cutting issue in all methods.

The Healthy Boxxx has now been expanded to include an extra bag with prevention materials on alcohol and tobacco consumption and a special folder with material on climate protection and climate change adaptation.

There are currently 20 Boxxxes available in Austria. In addition, all method and game instructions are available digitally and can also be used without the case parts by rebuilding parts, which also has a further effect as it reinforces the playful element. Recently, the elements of the Healthy Boxxx were digitized and partly gamified in order to be able to offer digital youth work activities. As the demand for the Boxxx is also high from labour market projects and special educational organizations, digitalization is a way of making it available to other fields of activity.

The special feature of the Healthy Boxxx is that it was developed for very low-threshold and participatory settings and that the methods were developed by youth workers and young people themselves. The digitalization of the Boxxx makes it even more widely applicable.

About Daniela Kern-Stoiber

Daniela Kern-Stoiber, Managing Director of bOJA, a nationwide network for professional open youth work, clinical and health psychologist and occupational psychologist. Since 2014, she has been in charge of “Health Literate Youth Work”, which, initially project-funded and then supported by the Ministry of Youth, develops, implements and supports a wide range of activities and measures to promote health literacy among young people in youth work. The Healthy Boxxx was also developed as part of these activities.

Photo: Akzente Salzburg

What do you think are the key elements or principles that make the “Healthy BOXXX” successful? How do you ensure that it is and remains relevant and effective for young people?

The Healthy Boxxx was created on the initiative of youth workers in Salzburg, who developed on behalf of bOJA this set of methods with the involvement of young users of professional open youth work and tested them in practice. Important for the Healthy Boxxx is the fun factor, the relevance of the topics (the Boxxx has to be constantly updated because certain health-related trends emerge, such as vapes and snoozes) or certain topics become particularly visible in practice, such as anxiety disorders, addictions, violence. The openness of the methods makes it possible to deal with different topics of the young people without coming across as too pointing and problematizing the young people's living environments.

The digitalization of the Boxxx also makes it easier to address psychosocial issues that are associated with shame and where it is easier for young people to deal with them alone in an anonymous setting.

Relevance is ensured by the fact that we receive ongoing feedback from practitioners on the use of the Healthy Boxxx and thus become aware of changing needs and necessities.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in developing and implementing it in practice? How did you involve young people? How did you overcome these challenges?

The Healthy Boxxx was created as a method to promote health literacy among young people. It was developed by a group of youth workers in Salzburg who also involved young users of professional open youth work. Since both the development and testing of the methods and games took place in the setting of professional open youth work (in the youth centers and in public spaces), the involvement of young people was not difficult for us and also corresponded to the participatory demands of professional open youth work, in which all measures and offers should be co-designed by young people.

As an umbrella organization for professional open youth work and as the founder of “health-literate youth work”, the implementation of the Healthy Boxxx was easier in practice than if we were an organization outside the field of action. The Healthy Boxxx is in high demand in the federal states; in some federal states, such as Tyrol, the Healthy Boxxx is constantly on loan and is being replicated by practitioners. It is located as an analogous set for lending either in the local representatives of professional open youth work or in the respective youth information centers.

Photo: Akzente Salzburg

Could you please describe a success story or a pivotal moment from your work with the “Healthy BOXXX”?

I can't think of a particularly memorable experience with the Healthy Boxxx. I think it is the unbroken interest in the method set, the enthusiasm and interest of the youth workers to work with it and also the interest in neighboring fields of social work, such as disability assistance or labor market projects, for which methods and games are also relevant. Producing low-threshold products is not always easy and if young people were involved in the development, the product is all the more valuable.

What do you think people working with young people should consider most when dealing with mental health and how does the “Healthy BOXXX” support them in this?

The success factors in working with young people on mental health are the same as those that apply to health promotion in general: Proximity to the real world in terms of approaches, language and topics; low-threshold; involving the target groups in the development of measures; starting where people are at the moment (this achieves relevance and sustainability); strengthening health literacy in order to increase people's self-efficacy and self-determination.

For young people, there is also the fun factor. It must bring them joy, captivate them and have little to do with learning at school as possible. Peers are important, and the digital space, as young people no longer separate their analog and digital lives.

When working with the Healthy Boxxx, we take all of these success factors into account as far as possible and the Boxxx enables youth workers to work in the same pedagogical way as they normally do.

If you had a magic wand and could make one single change to improve the mental health of young people worldwide, what would you change?

Unfortunately, the issues surrounding mental health are multifactorial.

If I were to get into it anyway, it would probably be about education. (Followed by combating poverty, but perhaps this can be solved with education....)

Based on your experience, what message or advice would you give to young people to maintain their mental health?

Another difficult question..... I don't believe that you can maintain your mental health on an individual level if the external structural conditions threaten your mental health....

The young people we deal with in professional open youth work come from difficult social backgrounds and have to fight their way through life more than others. The outward expression of this struggle for survival and coping often appears incompatible with the usual conventions of a community, which in turn leads to these young people's opportunities to shape their lives being even more restricted and their mental health being even more damaged as a result.