Building on a social innovation model with “Mentor Mothers” developed by Philani Maternal and Child Health Project in South Africa, the project “Yalla Lotsar” has been introduced in Malmö by the Yalla Trappan. The project aims to contribute to increased autonomy and opportunities to create a good life by reducing social isolation, exclusion, low trust in authorities and society, as well as increasing the number of children enrolled in preschool and increasing knowledge about the young child’s health, learning and development. The main goals are to strengthen the parental role and make community functions available to the project’s target group; asylum seekers, newly arrived and foreign-born women with children aged 0–6 years.

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DöBra is a national research program which aims to raise issues about dying, death and grief to enable people to be better prepared for their encounters with the end-of-life. The overall goal of DöBra is to reduce avoidable suffering related to dying, death and grief, and to use innovative means to integrate rigorous research and sustainable change processes.

Within the DöBra program, researchers have not only presented research for scientific audience, but have also developed and disseminated tools together with healthcare professionals, relatives, patients, and interest groups. These tools are readily available resources to stimulate and facilitate reflection and discussion about what is important at the end-of-life. One example is the DöBra cards, another is the Studio DöBra Toolbox. The group has also created several short films available for public use.

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Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) is a program for school students that promotes discussion and develops skills to meet life’s difficulties and increase knowledge about mental health.

The program promotes the development of problem solving ability and emotional intelligence, such as how to deal with one’s own and others’ feelings, relationships and empathy. Students get information about mental health-promoting lifestyles and how to help themselves and their friends.

The program has proven effective in a study including over 11,000 school students in ten EU countries.

YAM is implemented by the National Center for Suicide Research and Prevention (NASP) together with Region Stockholm and by MHIM international (KI Holding company) in the rest of Sweden and internationally.

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In Sweden, psychosocial support for children and young people who have experienced trauma is not equally accessible or available in a timely manner due to resource constraints within specialised services. Therefore, it is critical to develop and evaluate targeted prevention approaches that have the potential to provide immediate and sustained relief to many children and young people. This project sets out to develop a trauma support app, designed with and for children and young people, to be used together with a community-based group support programme called Teaching Recovery Techniques. A team of youth will work as co-researchers with the Child Health and Parenting (CHAP) research group at Uppsala University throughout the project, including app development, usability testing, and dissemination of the project findings.

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Findings from Europe indicate that, compared to general populations, forced migrants are at greater risk of experiencing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), especially by unknown perpetrators. Despite recurring contact, health care services often fail to identify that these people have experienced violence, which means they seldom receive the right treatment and support. Even when experiences of violence are identified, both health care staff and other actors, e.g. the social services, have uncertainties about what support is available at a non-acute stage and there is a distinct lack of collaboration between services. The aim of this project is to co-develop support services with forced migrants in Sweden who have experienced SGBV. A team of public contributors will work with the research team to explore help-seeking behaviours, conduct a case review of existing services and co-design a new service model.

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Working with a diverse constellation of sanitation actors across Uganda and Sweden, MAD is developing a next generation ecosystem through an innovation that enables people to literally be paid-to-poop! Thus turning the currently dysfunctional water and sanitation system on its head – transforming the “money pit” into a revenue source.

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Using the modern art of video games as a tool for empowerment and to promote equality for women, men, non-binary persons and LGBTQ+ people MAD will adapt and expand on the existing To be a Woman anti-discrimination game . The online art and advocacy game provides agents of change with an interactive human rights-based tool to inform, educate and engage in the creation of an inclusive, anti-discrimination narrative – promoting inclusive societies (SDG 16), gender equality (SDG 5) and making human settlements inclusive and safe (SDG 11).

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