Inclusive Mental Health Services for Youth

Thank you for continuing to support Crisis Mental Health Help for young people, as well as everyone that needs it. Your generosity makes it possible for us to show up — in crisis moments, in schools, in detention centers, online and offline — wherever people need us most.

Here is a glimpse into what we have been doing over the past four months.

Some young people cannot come to us — so we go to them

Our team of psychologists has begun visiting reeducation centers across Slovakia, where young people carry heavy life stories: loss, violence, loneliness, families that failed them. In these visits, we meet with the young people themselves — talking about emotions, anger, relationships, conflicts — things they often carry silently, with nowhere safe to put them. Gradually, trust builds, and their stories begin to surface.

We also meet with the staff of these centers. These are people who carry enormous responsibility every day, often without adequate support. Many speak of exhaustion and facing difficult situations alone. They deserve to be heard too.

Through specially configured tablets in three reeducation centers, young people can now anonymously contact our Crisis Helpline at any time they need — complemented by in-person visits from our team. This pilot project, supported by the Ministry of Education, Research, Development and Youth of the Slovak Republic, is just a beginning. Our goal is to expand this model to further facilities across the country.

Kácko on wheels: Psychological Support on the Train

March has brought our work on the road — or rather, on the rails.

In partnership with ZSSK (Slovak Railways), our psychologists traveled the full route from Bratislava to Košice and back, transforming a social railway car into a temporary Kácko — our safe space for in person psychological help. Passengers could stop by, sit down, and talk about whatever they were carrying. Many did. And our psychologists listened to the stories that people had been traveling with silently, by themselves.

Education: Building a Stronger Net 

Over the past months, we have been increasing our effort in training frontline professionals across Slovakia.

We delivered our Foundations of Crisis Intervention training in multiple cities — a three-day program where participants work with real cases from IPcko's practice, are being trained in stabilization techniques, and explor how to support someone in crisis while also caring for themselves.

We organized free trainings for school psychologists, teachers, counselors, and social educators across all regions of Slovakia, responding directly to what these professionals face every day in schools: emotional crises, conflicts, and questions that don't have easy answers.

In Košice, we welcomed staff from a therapeutic educational sanatorium to explore how modern technologies — including virtual reality — can support work with young people. VR can help with focus training, relaxation, creating safe spaces for difficult conversations, and gradually overcoming fears — and we showed them how to use these tools.

We also delivered a training for secondary school professionals focused on building psychological resilience — in students, parents, and school staff alike — and on creating safer, more open school environments. We also carried out another education on self-harm and we co-organized a mini-conference bringing together experts, psychologists, and young people themselves to discuss what today's generation truly needs.

We also launched a new long-term educational program for professionals working with youth. The opening sessions focused on youth mental health, generational differences, and building bridges between adults and Generation Z and Alpha. Coming modules will cover digital environments, radicalization, disinformation, AI, crisis intervention, as well as online field work.

And we continued with our Nevypocutý educational program - for radicalization prevention, in which we have already trained almost 500 experts from all around Slovakia. 

We Know What Young People Think about Social Media Regulation

Together with research agency Focus, we gathered thirty-one young people across four Slovak cities, to participate in our focus groups. Sharing their views on the benefits and risks of social networks, how these platforms affect them personally, and what could be done to prevent harm.

Key findings: young people are aware of the dangers of social media and are not opposed to regulation — but they don't want to navigate this alone. They believe parents and platform owners should play the primary role, yet they gave parents a grade of 3 (on a Slovak grading scale, roughly a C-minus) for their understanding of the online world. Young people call for better content moderation and are united on the need for some form of regulation — though divided on the question of minimum age limits.

We published the full research findings, along with ten recommendations that emerged from the conversations — and five additional recommendations from IPcko, emphasizing participatory approaches, meaningful offline alternatives, a network of accessible low-threshold centers, media literacy support for parents and professionals, and available anonymous psychological help for all.

We followed the research with a roundtable bringing together key figures in upcoming social media legislation — including the Minister of Education Tomáš Drucker, representatives of child and adolescent psychiatry, school psychology, mobile operators, the EU Commission, the Police, and others. The central message: regulation alone is not enough. The real question is not what to ban, but what we can offer instead — to young people, their parents, teachers, and the professionals around them.

International Conference: Radicalization of Youth 3.0

We organized the third edition of our international conference on youth radicalization, bringing together experts from Slovakia and from abroad — including guests from Finland, Denmark, and Austria.

Over two days, participants explored how radicalization begins (often in online spaces), the psychology of a young person moving toward extremism, the link between misogyny and violent extremism, radicalization in digital gaming communities, and concrete prevention models from across Europe.

The Minister of Education spoke about upcoming legislative changes. The President of the Slovak Police addressed the complexity of extremism beyond the security lens. Our own team shared field experience from IPcko and presented our Nevypocutý ("Unheard") project, which supports young people who feel overlooked and dismissed.

NEPUKNI: A Positive Challenge and a New Podcast

We launched NEPUKNI ("Don't Burst") — a 10-day email challenge designed for anyone who sometimes feels like they're carrying more than they can hold: students before exams, people whose phones don't stop ringing after work hours, parents who take care of everyone around them but forget about themselves.

Over 10 days, participants receive one small, gentle challenge per day — no pressure, no judgment, no need to be perfect. Just a few minutes, for themselves.

Alongside the challenge, we launched the NEPUKNI podcast — a series of conversations with IPcko psychologists about the topics people bring to us most often, but rarely speak about openly in their lives. The first episode tackled loneliness: why we can feel alone even when surrounded by people, what it does to our everyday lives, and how to find a way through. New episodes will continue to explore what to do when things start to feel like too much.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART?

WE CONTINUE TO BE HERE - NONSTOP and FOR FREE

Behind every project and initiative, our core work continues without a break.

Every day — 365 days a year — we provide free, anonymous, round-the-clock crisis psychological help through our Crisis Helpline IPcko (phone, chat, and email). Our online field team monitors closed communities and actively reaches out to vulnerable young people in the digital spaces where they spend their time. Our low-threshold youth clubs across Slovakia offer young people under 30 a safe space to belong, grow, build a community, and access informal psychological support. Our crisis intervention teams go directly to people in acute crisis, wherever they are.

This is the steady heartbeat of IPcko — and it beats because of your support.

Thank You

Because of you, #HELPEXISTS.

Your support keeps our services free, anonymous, and available to anyone who needs them — at any hour, on any day.

Thank you for helping with us.

Links:

• Visit our website

Dear friend,

Thank you for supporting Inclusive Mental Health Services for Youth. Your generosity allows us to respond where help is needed most — in real-time crises in people’s lives.

Here’s a glimpse into how we’ve been showing up in recent months and in the whole year 2025.

When Seconds Matter

Let us share a story from one of our psychologists with you:

"A young woman called our Crisis Helpline directly from railway tracks. She said she wanted to jump under a train.

During the call, we worked step by step to help her move toward safety. She did not want to leave the tracks. Then we heard the train approaching. The sound grew louder and louder — and then came the overwhelming rush as it passed.

Silence.

And then her voice. Shaken. She had stepped aside at the very last moment.

We continued talking. Later, she came to meet us in person. Today, she is under psychiatric care and continues to use our Crisis Helpline — not in moments where seconds separate life and death, but on difficult days when she needs someone to listen."

This is just one of the thousands of stories, that your support makes possible.

2025: Growing Need, Growing Response

In 2025, IPcko provided 181,087 helping and crisis interventions, representing a 26.6% increase compared to the previous year.

On our Crisis Helpline alone, we answered 94,143 calls and chats.
However, due to capacity limitations, more than 200,000 additional requests for help went unanswered.

This remains one of our greatest challenges.

• 73% of contacts came from people under 30 years old.

• We were present in 2,311 acute suicidal crises.

• In contacts involving suicidal thoughts, 39% were children and youth under 18.

The scale of distress among young people continues to grow — and so does the urgency of accessible, free, anonymous mental health support.

AI: A New Reality in Youth Mental Health

During this reporting period, one theme became increasingly visible: artificial intelligence.

Young people are turning to AI tools as confidants, “therapists,” partners, and emotional processors. Some use AI to formulate messages before reaching out to us. Others seek answers to their emotional struggles there first. In some cases, AI agents explicitly suggest contacting our Crisis Helpline IPcko.

Between the first and second half of 2025, contacts mentioning AI increased by 74%. In total, we encountered AI-related topics more than 2,500 times during the year.

In response, we organized a national roundtable with crisis lines across Slovakia — both nonprofit and state services — to openly discuss what this shift means. Where can AI support reflection? Where must human care remain irreplaceable?

Our position is clear: technology may open the door, but healing requires human connection and expertise.

Preventing Radicalization Through Mental Health Care

Another major focus of ours has been the prevention of youth radicalization — which is deeply connected to emotional vulnerability, loneliness, identity struggles, and the need to belong.

In 2025, we delivered 34 trainings for frontline professionals, published a methodological guide, assessed risk levels in schools, and participated in regional and national roundtables involving multiple ministries.

During this reporting period, our psychologists completed an advanced three-day training on radicalization dynamics, in cooperation with Slovakia’s Counter-Terrorism Unit. We also contributed to inter-ministerial discussions emphasizing that prevention requires coordination across education, justice, health, and social sectors. We also continued in conducting trainings for first-line youth workers, on radicalization prevention. 

We strongly believe that radicalization is not primarily a security issue — it is a mental health and belonging issue. And prevention begins with listening.

Safe Spaces: From Crisis to Community

Crisis intervention is only one part of our work.

In February, we opened MEET Club in Zilina — a new safe space for young people under 30. It is a place where they can meet, spend time meaningfully, build community, and access psychological support in an informal environment.

We see every day how powerful these spaces are.

One group of teenage boys used to come regularly to our club in another Slovak city — playing table football, sitting on “their” couch, building rituals. When one of them entered a deep suicidal crisis, his friends literally brought him to us and said, “You will tell them everything. They will help you.”

He slowly learned to speak about what he felt — even in front of friends who had only known his “strong” side. The club became more than a hangout space; it became a bridge to professional help.

Help exists, even during Christmas

During the Christmas season, we strengthened our capacities and organized holiday dinners for young people who lacked safety and stability at home. For some, it was the only place they experienced warmth, acceptance, and belonging during the holidays.

We were also present online, for all those, who did not have a Merry Christmas. 

Meeting People Where They Are

Much of young people’s pain today begins online.

Our online field team expanded its monitoring of over 100 closed communities and at-risk individuals. We also conducted research (in partnership with Nadácia Orange) on how young people use memes to express emotions. Memes are not just jokes — often they are coded signals of distress.

If we want to understand youth mental health, we must understand their language.

Additionally, we continue our suicide prevention project by placing reflective help boards at high-risk railway locations across Slovakia — reminding individuals in their darkest moments that help exists and that someone is ready to listen.

Stability Remains Uncertain

While 2025 brought partial stabilization after a financially difficult previous year, we enter 2026 with uncertainty. Crisis lines in Slovakia still lack stable systemic funding that would guarantee long-term accessibility.

The need is increasing. The demand is visible - we feel it every day. And we continue to operate knowing that we are only able to respond to a fraction of those who reach out.

Thank You

Because of you, #HELPEXISTS.

Because of your support, our services remain free, anonymous, and available 24/7. Because of you, young people who feel alone, overwhelmed, or at risk can hear a human voice on the other side of the line.

Thank you for standing with us as we continue to grow, adapt to new challenges, and respond to an increasingly complex mental health landscape.

Together, we ensure that no one has to face their hardest moments alone.