Unemployed Youth And Well-Being; How can psychological tests and subjective narratives broaden our understanding of the visible and invisible well-being and ill-being of young people?

Background: A rising number of young people in Denmark are struggling with mental health issues, still the
municipal job centers are not noticing or adjusting their interventions to this situation. This presentation is
based on the research- and intervention study Reconnect, where three municipal job centers screens young
people in the age 18-29 for mental ill health and, if the test shows signs hereof, provides the young person
with a modified IPS-intervention (Individual Placement and Support).
Methods: In the Reconnect Project the young people are tested for anxiety and depression through the
evidence based psychological tests; GAD-7, MDI, WHO-Five Well-Being Index. Through this, certain aspects
of the young peoples’ vulnerability are emphasized, namely “signs of mental ill health”, which give them
access to participation in the project.
Concurrently, a smaller group of the young people a followed in an ethnographic study. Through interviews
we gain an insight into how the young people are experiencing being categorized as living with “mental ill
health” in the Reconnect Project, how they experience and narrate about well-being and ill-being, make use
of the categories and values they ascribe these experiences.
Discussion: We discuss how mental well-being and ill-being are expressed in the perspectives of tests and
the subjective narratives of the young people in Reconnect. Through this we explore the visible and invisible
sides of well-being and ill-being with a curiosity as to how the young people assign both sides value. This
contributes to new understandings of mental well-being, vulnerability and youth life.