Traumatic effects of disasters and violent acts on youth

1. Introduction Youth’s mental health is currently in crisis also due to a variety of disasters and violent acts that are involving Europe, making both children and adolescents direct or indirect victims. Notwithstanding the attention of international research and policies for developing resilience after a disaster, fewer resources have been devoted to promoting preventive initiatives. 2. General assessment of the problem Natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, pandemics, floods), technological disasters (e.g., road incidents, industrial incidents, collapses), and violent acts (e.g., wars, terrorism, migrations) can provoke traumatic consequences on youth’s mental health and well-being , . These consequences – in terms, for example, of increases in psychopathological symptoms and disturbances such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder – can hit not only youth experiencing a disaster directly but also indirectly . Developmental psychology and emergence psychology can offer scientific knowledge to describe this problem and favour a better understanding of such consequences, pointing out possible preventive solutions. 3. Answers Psychoeducation can be used to enhance disaster preparedness and prevention targeting a broad audience, including children and adolescents. Examples of such initiatives include a variety of school-based interventions, apps, public communication campaigns, and guidelines. In Italy, we implemented these activities about earthquakes , , pandemics , , , floods , and wars , offering methods for generalising them to other contexts. This can be the basis for developing large-scale standards at the European level, for example, to promote emotional competence related to current and future disasters within the schools. 4. Conclusions: Future challenges and options A critical future challenge regards the need to identify resources to educate youths to cope with current and future disasters.