Abstract
Brazil has some of the world’s most forward-looking laws governing young people’s rights, which recognise young people not as ‘objects’ of assistance but as active agents, with the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Yet, in the current political climate in Brazil, these advances are under threat. Enhancing youth agency is critical to maintain and further progress towards promoting mental health and wellbeing amongst adolescents, as well as the wider children’s rights agenda. Taking this into account, the University of Oxford and University of Brasília created a partnership called ‘Project Engajadamente’, which aims to map and foster young people’s transformative potential towards improving mental health within school communities. This talk will present results from the first phase of ‘Engajadamente Project’: a qualitative mapping of how young people recognise and apply their agency and responsibility towards promoting mental health. The study was co-produced by a team of youth researchers who conducted 16 focus groups and 10 individual interviews via videoconference (N= 48). Participants were aged between 15 and 18 years old and were purposely recruited from the five regions of Brazil. Transcripts were analysed using reflexive Thematic Analysis, which captured young people’s motivation and responsibility towards promoting mental health as well as barriers to engage in actions and discussions addressing mental health.

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