Strengthening Social Interactions and Constructing New Oral Health and Health Knowledge: The Co-design, Implementation and Evaluation of A Pedagogical Workshop Program with and for Homeless Young People.

Andrea Rodriguez,Ruth Freeman,Laura Beaton

doi:10.3390/dj7010011

Abstract

Young homeless people make up nearly one-third of those experiencing homelessness. The need to provide an educative approach, to strengthen social interacting, and construct new knowledge to increase social inclusivity, is required. The aim of this qualitative exploration was to use critical consciousness as an educative tool, to co-design, implement, and evaluate a series of oral health and health pedagogical workshops to strengthen social engagement and to construct new health knowledge, with, and for, homeless young people and their service providers. An action research design permitted the simultaneous development, implementation, and evaluation of the pedagogical workshop program. A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), providing supported accommodation for young homeless people, acted as the partner organization. Thirteen young people and five staff members from this NGO participated and co-designed eight workshops. Qualitative data collection included unstructured post-intervention interviews together with verbatim quotes from the group discussions during the workshops and from the post-workshop questionnaires. The qualitative analysis was informed by content analysis to permit the emergence of key themes from the data. The two themes were: 1. ‘trust building and collective engaging’ and 2. ‘constructing knowledge and developing skills’. Theme 1 highlighted engagement with the service provider, illustrating the transformation of the young people’s relationships, strengthening of their social interacting, and enabling their critical reflexive thinking on sensitive issues present in the homelessness trajectory. Theme 2 illustrated the young people’s ability to share, lend, and encode their new health information and convert it into an understandable and useable form. This new comprehension permitted their behavior change and social interaction. These findings provide an approach to increase young people’s knowledge, health literacy, and strengthen their social interacting to support community action.

Highlights

Recent news reports on young homeless people have put youth homelessness at center-stage.Research that was commissioned by the BBC showed that over 40% of young people sofa surfed with friends for long periods of time without seeking support from Local Authorities [1]
The presentation of the themes and their behavioral descriptors provide an illustration of how critical consciousness in the form of educational workshops may be developed and implemented for and with young people to promote health and psychosocial wellbeing
We propose that critical consciousness as an educative tool conjured a therapeutic space for spontaneous social interacting—an ‘empathetic encounter’ to strengthen social engagement and consolidate new knowledge

Summary

Introduction

Recent news reports on young homeless people have put youth homelessness at center-stage.Research that was commissioned by the BBC showed that over 40% of young people sofa surfed with friends for long periods of time without seeking support from Local Authorities [1]. J. 2019, 7, 11 joint and multiagency approach to tackle the health and social care challenges of young homeless people [6]. The ice-breaker activities provoked openness within an informal learning environment In this way, the spontaneity of the interaction was fostered to enable critical reflection, as described by Freire. (3) Increasing awareness: During the workshops, the PI and the workshop facilitators captured the different concerns, knowledge, and life experiences of each participant. This was a crucial moment because what was captured from the participants’ narratives informed the content to be explored later in the workshop. There was a change in the perspective of learning based in passing or transmitting new information and knowledge, and putting the participants at the centre of their learning process [22]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion