Growing up amidst violence: mapping mental health ecologies with young people on Colombia’s Pacific Coast

Background: Experiencing violence and conflict during childhood and adolescence can significantly impact mental health, including affecting young people’s social and economic development. We lack research in conflict-affected contexts that directly analyses the perceptions and experiences of young people themselves. We do not understand enough how conflict-affected environments damage the social tissue and connectedness of young people. We need a better understanding of the resources and agency that young people have to access support for their mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Methods: Based on participatory creative research methods, this article describes which resources young Afro-Colombian people living in the city of Quibdó make use of to improve and support their emotional wellbeing. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, we explore the social tissue of youth mental health.

Results: Participants mostly drew on sources of support in their immediate microsystem: family and friends; arts and sports in the neighbourhood; culture and nature; and individual coping strategies in the home. These microsystems bore signs of significant disruption as a result of conflict and violence, increasing individual and collective vulnerability. We identify a disconnect between these young people, their immediate environment (family, school, neighbourhood) and existing support mechanisms offered by the state and community organisations.

Conclusions: To promote mental wellbeing, we identify the significance of safe spaces where young people are able to talk and connect to others and where trusted persons can connect young people to the wider exosystem of mental health care provision and to social, economic, peacebuilding and wider political processes.