Youth Voice Research Articles

“We Can Transform This, We Can Change This”: Adolescent Sociopolitical Development as a Catalyst for Healthy Life-Span Development

In the late 1970s, adolescents in East Harlem, New York, participated in a program called the Youth Action Program where they worked collectively to address systemic issues causing inequities in their communities (e.g., inequities in housing and education). In the current study, we integrate the sociopolitical development framework with life-course health development to explore how participation in the program shaped adolescents’ skills and capacities for social transformation in ways that were health-promotive and informative for life trajectories. Data included retrospective interviews and member-checking focus group data of 10 former Youth Action Program members (current Mage = 63; 45% female; 55% male) from predominantly Black and Latinx backgrounds. We used reflexive thematic analysis and adopted a case study approach to highlight how participants’ adolescent experiences of sociopolitical development and resistance against oppressive circumstances propelled healthy life-course development. Specifically, participants were able to establish healthy lives through four health-promotive sociopolitical developmental processes: questioning the system not the self; carving out alternative spaces and pathways; building agency in a dehumanizing society; and finding purpose through committing to social change. Our study suggests that contemporary youth organizing programs can incorporate sustaining practices including the careful vetting and training of adult staff, pursuing tangible opportunities to create change, and embedding youth voice and leadership into programmatic structures to encourage healthy development via sociopolitical development.

A Call for Youth Voice to Support Engagement in Care for 18- to 29-Year Olds Living with HIV in the US South.

Youth with HIV (YWH) face challenges in achieving viral suppression, particularly in the Southern United States, and welcome novel interventions responsive to community needs. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) describes factors that influence behavior change, and the Positive Youth Development (PYD) supports youth-focused program design. We applied TPB and PYD to explore factors supporting care engagement and challenges for YWH in South Texas. We conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with YWH and 7 focus groups with 26 stakeholders informed by TPB, PYD, and themes from a youth advisory board (YAB). The research team and YAB reviewed emerging themes, and feedback-aided iterative revision of interview guides and codebook. Thematic analysis compared code families by respondent type, TPB, and PYD. All study methods were reviewed by the UT Health San Antonio and University Health Institutional Review Boards. Emerging themes associated with care engagement included: varied reactions to HIV diagnosis from acceptance to fear/grief; financial, insurance, and mental health challenges; history of trauma; high self-efficacy; desire for independence; and desire for engagement with clinic staff from their age group. Stakeholders perceived YWH lifestyle, including partying and substance use, as care barriers. In contrast, YWH viewed "partying" as an unwelcome stereotype, and barriers to care included multiple jobs and family responsibilities. Two key themes captured in PYD but not in TPB were the importance of youth voice in program design and structural barriers to care (e.g., insurance, transportation). Based on these findings, we provide critical and relevant guidance for those seeking to design more effective youth-centered HIV care engagement interventions. By considering the perspectives of YWH in program design and incorporating the PYD framework, stakeholders can better align with YWHs' desire for representation and agency. Our findings provide important and relevant guidance for those seeking to design more effective HIV care engagement interventions for YWH.

“Show them the playbook that these companies are using”: Youth Voices about why Computer Science Education Must Center Discussions of Power, Ethics, and Culturally Responsive Computing

Culturally responsive computing (CRC), that centers sociopolitical issues and transformational uses of technology, has been described as valuable for increasing engagement with computing, especially for historically underrepresented minoritized students. But what do high school students think? Through a sociocultural lens prioritizing student voices recorded in 56 interviews over a period of 2 years (1-3 years after students’ first experience with CS education through Exploring Computer Science or Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles in high school), this study centers the perspectives of 39 primarily low-income, Latine and Black youth from urban California and rural Mississippi public schools to understand what they perceive as the role of technology in our world and what they subsequently desire of their computing education. While none have studied CRC before, the majority responded with CRC ideas about the kind of pedagogy they believe would make for a more meaningful computing learning experience: They see computing as a form of power that impacts both good and bad in the world, and want computing educators to prepare them to take on these issues of equity, ethics, social responsibility, and underrepresentation in the field. The students’ perspectives offer important pedagogical insight into how to support deeper engagement with computing in current Computer Science for All initiatives, while also preparing youth for the rapidly evolving and increasingly complex computing landscape that impacts all of our lives.

Enhancing youth Voices: Exploring community participation through youth workers

The European Union and Council of Europe (hereafter referred to as the EU and CE) encourage member states to promote and stimulate the active participation of young people through the role of youth workers. However, it is worth noting that the personal perceptions of youth workers may influence the actions they take to achieve this goal. This article aims to investigate the perceptions of youth workers and the characteristics and conditions of their interventions in promoting young people's participation in the community. To this end, six discussion groups were formed, consisting of 51 professionals working in this field in Catalonia, Spain. The findings suggest that youth workers associate the notion of participation with how young people dialogue with the public institutions. Although youth workers have observed self-managed forms of participation among young people, their aim is to improve the relationship between young people and institutions. They also acknowledge that young people are often on the margins of the local political context. Rather than being viewed as active citizens and central figures, young people are frequently seen as being in a learning and development phase towards adulthood. At the methodological level, youth workers use strategies based on socio-educational relationships and identify conditioning factors that limit the development of transformative policies for civic participation in their workplaces. It is recommended that the model for local youth policies be transformed into a more collaborative approach. This would involve collaboration between youth workers, young people and adults to foster innovative public participation policies that help promote the potential of municipalities for change.

A logic of care in / of / for voice: tuning-in, enacting and assembling in student voice practices and education

ABSTRACT The present moment is beset by many complex challenges. Young people face living with the consequences of decisions being made largely without their consent or involvement. Centering youth voices may be part of the solution. But we need to go beyond liberal, individualist and rights-based models that pay insufficient attention to the enabling conditions of meaningful voice, to temporalities, or to schooling as institution and process. Seeking alternative conceptualizations of voice, this paper draws on Annemarie Mol’s work on the ‘logic of care’ in relation to health services. She describes this as a ceaseless, ongoing, mutual process of attunement to the unpredictable nature of human existence, implicating a range of actors, technologies, resources, materials, meanings, and affects. This description better captures aspects of good – responsive – educational practice. It also resonates with recent feminist scholarship on the posthuman, new materialist and affective dimensions of everyday life and education. This can support innovative work related to youth voice, as exemplified by a research project aiming to ‘attune, animate and amplify’ what matters to young people in learning about sexuality. Such reconceptualizations may help us meet the challenges we face, not only in schools but those of life on a finite planet.

Amplifying Youth Voices Using Digital Technology: A Case Study in Collaborative Research With Youth Service Organizations

This paper presents three participatory methods informed by design techniques for engaging youth and youth services providers in research activities online. We detail two data collection methods: 1) a priming activity completed before a focus group to prompt reflection before direct interaction with the research team; and 2) a focus group activity imagining future organizational goals. We also share our technique for collaboratively analyzing preliminary research findings with a focus group activity. We developed these methods as a part of a larger research project examining how teens and those who provide services to teens through community programs conceptualized success in their experiences, sense of community, and program implementation. This paper discusses work with five organizations in a mid-size community in the midwestern United States during the COVID-19 pandemic (July 2021–February 2022). We aimed to amplify the voices and perspectives of teens in both research and the organizations they engaged in, bringing their participation to our data collection and analysis and to the adults and decision-makers of community organizations. We wanted to understand how youth or teens, defined as 13–19 years old, describe successful experiences in these out-of-school settings, how adults define success, and to identify connections and differences between these two perspectives. This paper details the techniques we developed and tested, shares examples from our research, and discusses the impacts and implications of these methods for future participatory work. We contribute evidence for the value of drawing on design methods for participatory methods, articulate benefits and considerations for intentionally doing so online, and share techniques that emphasize voice in both research and organizational partners’ program development and management.

“No, This Is Not My Boyfriend’s Computer”: Elevating the Voices of Youth in STEM Education Research Leveraging Photo-Elicitation

AbstractWe aim to elevate the stories and voices of youth in integrated STEM education, particularly those who have been historically marginalized and excluded from STEM spaces. Our research uses photo-elicitation to decenter the power of researchers and educators and elevate the experiences and expertise of youth in STEM. Findings are presented from three instrumental case studies, examining the perspectives of youth on what it means to do STEM, who belongs in STEM, and why STEM is important. The findings reveal that youth often perceive STEM as a siloed approach but also emphasize the need for greater integration of mathematics in STEM. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of STEM identity development, showing that belonging in STEM is not just about future careers but also about fostering a sense of belonging in the present. Additionally, the study uncovers that youth invoke empathy and social consciousness when explaining the importance of integrated STEM, emphasizing the need to address racial, gender, and professional biases in STEM educational spaces. This prompts a reconsideration of the motivations behind integrated STEM education, emphasizing the value of developing STEM literacy for the well-being of all youth, not just as future workforce preparation.

Advancing Equity through Effective Youth Engagement in Public Health to Operationalize Racism as a Public Health Crisis: The Flint Public Health Youth Academy Model

Background: The underrepresentation of BIPOC youth in the fields of public health, medicine, and research may be a factor contributing to the disproportionate rates of health disparities in BIPOC communities. In 2004, the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce, commissioned by the White House and led by the United States Health and Human Services, recommended efforts to increase the number of minority professionals in the aforementioned fields as necessary for addressing racial and ethnic health disparities. More recently, over 240 municipalities in the United States have declared “racism a public health crisis”. This national declaration links racism directly to public health disparities, thus calling for a public health response. The Flint Public Health Youth Academy (FPHYA) provides an effective model of youth engagement steeped in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). FPHYA was created based on a dissertation study designed to explore the motivators for engagement of African American and other minority students into careers in public health and its six recommendations. Methods: The FPHYA Model described in this article uses a case study of the Flint Water Crisis to assess and explore effective youth engagement models for public health. This model is rooted in the Continuum of Community Engagement and Youth Empowerment Theory and explores FPHYA’s contribution of youth voice in operationalizing racism as a public health crisis.

Indigenous Well-Being: An Anishinaabek Youth Leadership Approach

Successfully addressing the most challenging issues of our time (climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemics among them) will require transformative change in all areas of human society. We must embrace new perspectives with respect to our interactions with all life. Indigenous knowledge can aid global society in developing sustainable models for human-nature interaction. Indigenous youth are increasingly expressing solutions that can help put us on a clear path forward. The ongoing paternalistic nature of dominant society nonetheless means that Indigenous youth voice continues to be overlooked in most instances, even in programs that are ostensibly developed for the benefit of Indigenous and other youth. In this article, we place Indigenous youth voice front and centre as we describe an Indigenous youth-designed and led initiative aimed at improving mental health and overall wellbeing of specifically Indigenous youth.

About them, without them? figures of youth in Australian policy 2014–2021

ABSTRACT This paper considers the multiple and contradictory depictions of young people in youth policy and reflects on how youth engagement is constructed in Australian Federal and State policy. In this journal, researchers have been challenged to critically reflect on ‘figures of youth' (Threadgold, 2020) and we take up this challenge and consider how and why ‘figures of youth' are deployed in Australian youth policy. Drawing on an environmental scan of youth policy documents published between 2014-2021, we analyse the ways young people's voices are positioned to legitimate policy claims about what is required to help young people in Australia across multiple domains. Despite the apparent agreement among policy-makers that youth consultation is important in the policy development process, our scan points to a wide variety of interpretations of what ‘youth voice' might look like, how young people participate, and how their contributions are actually utilised. We argue that the persistence and frequent emergence of particular ‘figures of youth’ throughout Australian youth policy reflects the endurance of adult-centric interpretations of youth, and the partial and superficial procedures that claim to engage with young people, but which ultimately privilege the interests of other agendas.

Youth Are the Experts! Youth Participatory Action Research to Address the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis.

Adolescent mental health is an urgent global public health issue. Youth participatory action research is an effective strategy to amplify youth voices and can serve as a catalyst for evidence-based action addressing the mental health crisis. To illustrate the benefits of youth participatory action research for informing community health, we describe an ongoing collaboration with a youth council located in the central coast of California, USA. Research methods included an anonymous online self-report survey to gather information about the mental health of high school students in 2020 (n = 176) and 2022 (n = 234), 93% Latinx/Mexican American. Both surveys included a four-item patient health questionnaire to screen for depression and anxiety risk, in addition to scaled and open-ended survey questions selected by the youth leaders based on their research questions. Quantitative and qualitative results indicated a significant but small decrease in mental health risk, and a continued need for resources to access mental health support. Results led to community-based action aimed at improving local youth mental health. The interdisciplinary research team (psychology and public health) and youth leaders share reflections highlighting the innovative, empowering, and transformative impact of youth participatory action research as a tool for improving community health.

Participation, agency, and youth voice in establishing school gardens: comparing cases from Kenya and Papua New Guinea

This community case study investigates the establishment of school gardens in Kenya and Papua New Guinea (PNG), focussing on engagement and participation. The gardens are intersectional interventions addressing education, health and nutrition, food security, career development, and life skills. We focus on engagement between implementing agencies and schools—including youth—during establishment as it influences garden governance, activity, and organizational and educational cultures going forward. Following a synthesis of school garden literature, country contexts, and participation and engagement models, we present two case studies based on narrative interviews with in-country project managers, project experiences, and desktop reviews. Analysis reveals distinct culturally and project-influenced typologies of participation and engagement—Kenya’s was bottom-up driven by student participation, whereas PNG was top-down with little student participation—with differences affecting school and student garden ownership and motivation. The findings provide valuable lessons for low- and middle-income countries’ (LMIC) school garden establishment, particularly in understanding how evolving project goals affect engagement, managing power differentials in top-down and bottom-up models, considering how educational and broader culture affects student participation, emphasizing the need for cultural capacity building in implementing agencies, and recognizing the potential of school gardens as assets in disrupting educational norms and student-centered approaches.

Promoting COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence and Access among Youth Experiencing Homelessness: Community-Engaged Public Health Practice

Abstract: Background: Youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) face a wide range of complex barriers to COVID-19 vaccine confidence and access. Objectives: Describe our process for engaging a cross-sector team centering equity and youth voice; outline our intervention strategies to enhance COVID-19 vaccine confidence and access among YEH; and discuss lessons learned through this community-engaged process. Methods: We engaged partners from across sectors, including youth-serving agencies, healthcare organizations, public health organizations, and YEH. We used focus groups, key informant interviews, and other community engagement strategies to develop and implement a series of interventions aimed to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence and access among YEH. Results: We identified youths' key concerns about vaccine confidence and access. To address these concerns, we implemented four community-driven interventions: youth-friendly messaging, health events, vaccine aftercare kits, and staff training. Conclusions: This community-engaged project highlighted the value of cross-sector partnership and consistent youth engagement in addressing vaccine confidence among YEH.

Stacked Up Against Us: Using Photovoice and Participatory Methods to Explore Structural Racism's Impact on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Inequities.

While structural racism has profound impacts on adolescent health, little is known about how youth synthesize racialized experiences and work to dismantle systems of oppression. This article provides an overview of a Youth Participatory Action Research study that used Photovoice and community mapping to explore how structural violence, like racism, impacts the sexual and reproductive health of historically excluded youth as they navigate unjust socio-political landscapes. Youth participants used photography and community maps to identify how the experience of bias, profiling, and tokenism impacted their ability to navigate complex social systems. With youth voices prioritized, participants explored ways to address structural racism in their lives. The importance of co-creating opportunities with and for youth in critical reflection of their lived experience is emphasized. Through an Arts and Cultural in Public Health framework, we provide an analysis of the ways structural racism functions as a gendered racial project and fundamental cause of adolescent sexual and reproductive health inequities, while identifying pathways toward liberation in pursuit of health and well-being.

Out-of-School Time Programs in the United States in an Era of Racial Reckoning: Insights on Equity From Practitioners, Scholars, Policy Influencers, and Young People

The out-of-school time (OST) field in the United States has a complex history. The push to offer programming reflects a legacy rooted in moral panics about racially minoritized youth. However, this field is populated by community spaces that act as multipurpose sites of culturally sustaining educational practices supporting positive youth development. We report findings from interviews with OST leaders, youth workers, policy influencers, and youth about how to create, sustain, and protect more liberatory and humanizing practices, demonstrating that racism and deficit-based thinking continue to inform programmatic practices and youth experiences. Furthermore, this study reveals that programs with expansive ideas of youth voice, healing justice, and whole-child approaches to youth development create better opportunities for connection and belonging.

Out-of-school time use in Pakistan: A qualitative study featuring youth's voices.

The current study addresses the lack of out-of-school time (OST) research in low- and middle-income countries by exploring OST use in the context of Pakistan and incorporating youth's voices. Using a qualitative descriptive design with focus-group discussions, we conducted a study in three middle schools set in low- to middle-income neighborhoods in urban and rural areas of Karachi, Pakistan. We engaged 86 youth (50% girls; aged 10-15 years) that were purposefully selected from grade six (31.4%), seven (44.2%) and eight (24.4%) classrooms, balancing gender and locality. In each focus group, we asked participants to describe their afterschool activity routine on a typical weekday afternoon until bedtime. Digital recordings of discussions were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using content analysis. Based on sixteen focus groups with five to six participants in each group, we identified eight distinct categories: religious activities, schoolwork, screentime, helping adult family members, family time, outdoor play, indoor leisure activities, and hanging out with friends. We found that structured activities (e.g., religious activities and schoolwork supervised by an adult) were reported more frequently than unstructured activities (e.g., outdoor play and family time). Participation in activities varied by gender and location (i.e., urban vs. rural), highlighting disparities associated with the sociocultural context that marginalized youth face. Our findings provide a glimpse into the everyday lives of Pakistani youth outside of school. Additionally, they elucidate how economic resources, sociocultural norms regarding gender, and community safety shape youth's time use and socialization patterns. Findings from this study can inform the development of OST activities and initiatives aimed at promoting the positive development of Pakistani youth.

Walking Forward Together—The Next Step: Indigenous Youth Mental Health and the Climate Crisis

The climate crisis has resulted in mental health challenges for varying demographic groups of all ages, but Indigenous youth are one of the most vulnerable populations impacted by the climate crisis. Conversations regarding Indigenous youth and the climate crisis are often held without their presence or input, identifying a gap in research and the literature. The findings from this review include the components of climate change regarding the mental health of Indigenous youth as being direct and indirect pathways of impact and resistance. Direct pathways include the more immediate and physical consequences of climate change associated with mental unwellness. Indirect pathways include less obvious consequences to those without lived experience, such as disruptions to culture and magnified social inequities, which also result in negative mental health consequences. The resistance component explores how Indigenous youth have been protesting and actively speaking out, which highlights the importance of the inclusion of Indigenous youth voices in decision-making spaces related to mental health service resources (i.e., funding) and policy in climate action. This review ends with a discussion on ways forward, the limitations herein, and how the uniqueness of the research may contribute to climate justice.

Co-design of 'Ways of Being', a web-based experience to optimise online arts and culture for mental health in young people.

We aimed to co-design an intervention optimising the benefits of online arts and culture for mental health in young people for subsequent testing in a trial. Co-design followed the double diamond phases of design, discover, define, develop and deliver. Navigating the views of all co-designers to produce a testable resource demanded in-depth understanding, and frequent iterations in multiple modalities of the theoretical basis of the intervention, amplification of youth voice and commitment to a common goal. Co-design with a broad range of collaborators with a shared vision was valued by young co-designers and produced an effective intervention. Co-design allowed the theoretical basis to be followed and refined to create an engaging, practical and testable web experience, aiming to optimise the mental health benefits of online arts and culture for young people in a randomised controlled trial.

The League: A person-centred approach to the development of social robotics for paediatric anxiety.

Social robots are promising tools to improve the quality of life of children and youth living with anxiety and should be developed based on the priorities of end users. However, pathways to include young people in patient-oriented research, particularly in the overlap between technology and mental health, have been historically limited. In this work, we describe engagement with experts with lived experiences of paediatric anxiety in a social robotics research programme. We report the experiences of patient advisors in a co-creation process and identify considerations for other research groups looking to involve end users in technology development in the field of youth mental health. We engaged individuals with a lived experience of paediatric anxiety (current, recent past, or from a parent perspective) using three different models over the course of three years. Two initial patient partners were involved during project development, eight were engaged as part of an advisory panel ('the League') during study development and data analysis and four contributed as ongoing collaborators in an advisory role. League members completed a preparticipation expectationsurvey and a postparticipation experience survey. Eight individuals from a range of anxiety-related diagnostic groups participated in the League as patient partners. Members were teenagers (n = 3), young adults aged 22-26 years who had connected with a youth mental health service as children within the past eight years (n = 3) or parents of children presently living with anxiety (n = 2). Preferred methods of communication, expectations and reasons for participating were collected. The League provided specific and actionable feedback on the design of workshops on the topic of social robotics, which was implemented. They reported that their experiences were positive and fairly compensated, but communication and sustained engagement over time were challenges. Issues of ethics and language related to patient-centred brain health technology research are discussed. There is an ethical imperative to meaningfully incorporate the voices of youth and young adults with psychiatric conditions in the development of devices intended to support their mental health and quality of life. Six young people and two parents with lived experiences of paediatric anxiety participated in all stages of developing a research programme on social robotics to support paediatric mental health in a community context. They also provided input during the preparation of this manuscript.

Experiences of adolescents and youth with HIV testing and linkage to care through the Red Carpet Program (RCP) in Kenya.

Adolescents and youth living with HIV (AYLHIV) experience worse health outcomes compared to adults. We aimed to understand the experiences of AYLHIV in care in the youth-focused Red-Carpet program in Kenya to assess the quality of service provision and identify programmatic areas for optimization. We conducted focus group discussions among 39 AYLHIV (15-24 years) and structured analysis into four thematic areas. Within the HIV testing theme, participants cited fear of positive results, confidentiality and stigma concerns, and suggested engaging the community and youth in HIV testing opportunities. Within the HIV treatment adherence theme, participants cited forgetfulness, stigma, adverse side effects, lack of family support, and treatment illiteracy as barriers to adherence. Most participants reported positive experiences with healthcare providers and peer support. In terms of the HIV status disclosure theme, AYLHIV cited concerns about their future capacity to conceive children and start families and discussed challenges with understanding HIV health implications and sharing their status with friends and partners. Youth voices informing service implementation are essential in strengthening our capacity to optimize the support for AYLHIV within the community, at schools and healthcare facilities.