Breaking the Cycle: Reclaiming Hope and Belonging for Youth Leaving Institutional Care in Uganda

This is a youth-led, accessible video series accompanied by a guidebook.

It is designed to identify, address, and support the healing journey for children, young people, and youth in Uganda experiencing well-being and mental health adversity.

The goal is to provide families, social workers, and youth-serving organisations, including social work students, with the tools to initiate important, non-judgmental conversations about mental health and wellbeing.

This toolkit addresses several areas affecting youth in the community and young adults with lived experience of institutional care and focuses on four key areas:

• trauma and stress,
• depression and suicidal thoughts,
• anxiety, and
• loss and grief

The young adults featured in this video training series have grown up in orphanages, also known as children's homes in Uganda. Once they age out, or leave the orphanage, they are referred to as care leavers.