Our young people are struggling and finding it difficult to find their way to help.

This is evident from a recent survey by Groen among more than 500 young people. In order to lower the threshold for assistance, Groen proposes to appoint a psychologist for each school community. They could quickly pick up signals from young people struggling with something and help them quickly. 'With a permanent psychologist, we can strengthen the school teams and quickly offer professional help to young people who do not feel good about themselves in an accessible way,' according to Green MPs Elisabeth Meuleman and Jeremie Vaneeckhout. 'A large part of our young people are not happy. That should alarm us all,' says Vaneeckhout. 'Whereas in the past young people were usually the most optimistic generation, that is no longer the case at all.' This is evident from alarming figures after a recent survey of Green among more than 500 Gen Z'ers. Forty percent of young people, mainly girls, between the ages of 16 and 24 often do not feel well. In the same age group, 2 out of 3 young people are worried about the future. The latter also plays a role in younger children: 40 percent of 9 to 15-year-olds are also awake to the future. In addition, 48 percent of those surveyed indicate that they do not know where to go with their concerns. By appointing a permanent psychologist per school community, the Greens want to lower the threshold to assistance. 'With the appointment of a school psychologist, schools can provide an answer to the complex requests for help more quickly and in an accessible manner. At the same time, difficulties in young people can be detected more quickly, so that they can be helped at an early stage. In this way, we prevent the worries and complexity of the request for help from increasing.' Meuleman nuances that successful assistance requires a personal click between a psychologist and client. If there is none, the school psychologist can help with a referral to a colleague, always in close cooperation with the psychologists of the CPG. Reinforcement CPGs Currently, CPGs are the first point of contact in case of difficulties. In recent years, however, the centres have increasingly had to deal with complex requests for help, which means that they are less likely to receive prevention or smaller requests for help. 'Moreover, the underfunding at CPGs is an old problem,' says Meuleman. 'The centres do not have sufficient resources to meet existing and new needs. The students are ultimately the victims of this.' At the start of this government period, the Flemish government decided to save 11 million euros on pedagogical guidance services and CPGs. This is making itself felt: between 2015 and 2020, cpg's operating resources fell by more than 4 euros per pupil. Although the CPGs received more resources last year and this year - intended to meet the corona concerns of our young people - in practice they go to practical contact tracing instead of mental well-being. In addition to the appointment of a school psychologist, the Greens are therefore also pushing for the funding for the CPGs to be increased again. Thanks to the theme of De Warmste Week - 'we can be you' - mental well-being is high on the agenda this month. Groen also supports the action with the sale of 'goat wool socks'. But, "mental well-being requires more than media campaigns and temporary fundraisers. There is a need for structural change. With the proposal that we are putting on the table today, we encourage the Flemish government to finally invest in the well-being of our next generation,' says Vaneeckhout. To reinforce his message, Vaneeckhout will walk from Mechelen to the Flemish Parliament in Brussels on the night of 21 to 22 December. He will hand over proposals on mental well-being to the Flemish government, which will then start the budget discussion for 2022.