Youth Voice Research Articles

Child and youth participation in child protection: Provincial harm reduction policy efforts in the Canadian Province of New Brunswick.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) affirms interdependent rights to protection and participation, but barriers continue to hinder participation in protection practices. What can be learned from young people's participation in their own protection when it comes to harm reduction public policy efforts? This study focused on provincial public policy in New Brunswick, Canada and involved both children and adults in research design and data collection. The provincial Youth Voice Committee was created to inform the development and implementation of the provincial harm reduction strategy. This strategy promotes children's rights to live free from harm through the reduction of physical, sexual, emotional, and sociocultural harms, not only abuse and neglect. This study involved international and local child and youth advisory committees to support research design and implementation. Participatory qualitative data collection methods included young people and adults separately as well as collectively in intergenerational meetings. Findings reveal a broad and unique interpretation of child protection as harm reduction, and that fear and policy processes continue to pose barriers even in contexts dedicated to children's rights. Adults should no longer exclusively influence protection policies, and children and youth are interested in effective intergenerational and relational collaborations. Greater commitment to diversity is needed in participatory efforts. A rights-based relational approach in research and policy-making necessitates the effective involvement of children and youth to support harm reduction in policy and practice. Policy makers are urged to engage young people alongside adults in child protection and public policies.

Reflections on using Talanoa methodology to engage with Pacific youth in Aotearoa New Zealand about their sexual and reproductive health

Pacific understandings of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) encompass beliefs and practices reflective of Pacific values systems. These are integral to cultural understandings of safety, relationships, and intimacy. Research processes and practices that appropriately address these values and sensitives are scarcely available in the literature, leading to limited use and understanding of culturally appropriate methods and procedures. Pacific methodologies like Talanoa are useful in ensuring that cultural perspectives unique to Pacific youth are addressed and appropriately represented in the research. This paper describes how cultural factors associated with sexual and reproductive health influenced the Talanoa research processes in a study of Pacific youth and SRH education. Key cultural considerations are discussed focussing on the positionality of the researchers, cultural sensitivities and protocols, communication strategies and the role of flexibility in privileging Pacific youth voices.

Contesting Hegemonic Narratives

This article explores how Sámi youth engage with Sámi literature and film as an act of decolonisation and philosophical self-determination; it focuses on their reception of fictional texts and their relationship with truth. Drawing on reviews published in Š Nuoraidmagasiidna, a Sámi youth magazine, this research demonstrates how young reviewers interpret literature as an alternative narrative of truth; it challenges Nordic national regimes of truth and histories of colonialism through the revival of Sámi stories. Using qualitative analysis, this research highlights the pragmatic ways Sámi youth read and evaluate literature, emphasising its role in verifying or falsifying historical and contemporary Sámi realities. The findings suggest that for Nordic countries to achieve meaningful truth and reconciliation, there must be space for ‘gulahallan’, a Sámi term referring to communication and an understanding of Sámi perspectives on truth, particularly those of Sámi youth. These receptions are tools for navigating personal and collective experiences within and beyond colonial structures. This study also proposes a pragmatic educational philosophy of Sámi literature that addresses both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. By centring Sámi youth voices, this research underscores the decolonial potential of literature to inspire identity formation, foster dialogue and cultivate understanding across cultural divides.

Application of Youth-Led Participatory Action Research to Examining Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Ontario: What Can We Learn?

Engaging adolescents and young people as partners in research is increasingly acknowledged as a vital strategy to ensure diverse voices are heard and to catalyze social change. This article, coauthored by adolescent and adult researchers, presents the methodological approach and outcomes of a youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) study in which three teams of youth researchers developed and implemented projects examining equity-related factors affecting adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (ASRHR) in Ontario, Canada. Teams of four assigned-female youth researchers aged 16-19 years were recruited from three priority regions through purposive sampling. Selected youth completed a paid 5-day virtual YPAR training. Each youth team, supported by adult research mentors, identified key ASRHR issues in their region and developed a related research question. Each team then determined their study's design, obtained institutional ethics approval, and conducted data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Based on their findings, teams proposed potential solutions and communicated results to multiple stakeholders. Methodologically, the YPAR process amplified youth voices through a social justice-framed approach to examining ASRHR. Centering the perspectives, values, and experiences of youth positively impacted the youth researchers themselves, while yielding results that were relevant, meaningful, adolescent-responsive, and culturally informed. Results from the youth-led projects identified multiple barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health services and products. Policy and practice implications encompassed concerns related to geographical accessibility, equity, service provider competence, and content of sexuality education curricula.

Social Media and the Adolescent Transplant Recipient.

Social media is interwoven into adolescents' daily lives. Many adolescents utilize digital technology in their healthcare journeys, as do their caregivers. Health systems increasingly seek ways to leverage these new tools toward supporting and caring for patients. These approaches may be of particular importance of adolescents, as well as healthcare systems, in providing care for chronic and serious illness including transplant patients. This review article will begin with an overview of adolescent social media use. We will then consider ways in which social media may impact adolescents' healthcare experience including identity development and adherence. Caregivers may leverage social media for information seeking. Families may use social media to seek social support, as well as potential donors. For healthcare systems, social media may enhance research efforts as well as information delivery. Future directions include studies examining how social media can support adolescent transplant patients. incorporation of youth voice into these studies may enhance application of findings to clinical practice.

Hope in action: The power of youth voices in leading global change

Youth voices are driving global change through research and advocacy. By linking community observations to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, students transform curiosity into impactful solutions. Collaborative, intercultural efforts amplify their leadership, addressing challenges like climate change and equity. This highlights the critical role of student voices in shaping a fairer, more sustainable future.

Program quality instrument for youth (PQI-youth): validation of a brief, self-report measure

How do you capture youth voices when evaluating youth programs? Currently, there is no gold standard youth-report survey. This study assesses the validity of the revised Program Quality Instrument for Youth (PQI-Youth) to capture youth experiences. Participants included 511 demographically diverse youth from eight Children, Youth, and Families At-Risk programs nationwide. Participants completed the revised PQI-Youth, Child and Youth Resilience Measure and Every Day Living Life Skills Instrument. Exploratory factor analysis using parallel analysis identified six factors, explaining 56% of variance. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated youth’s program quality rating was associated with life skill and resilience increases. The final 21-item survey measures Eccles & Gootman components of program quality, including Supportive Relationships, Opportunities to Belong, Skill-building & Efficacy, Community & Family Integration, Positive Norms, and Structure & Safety. The full scale or subscales can record youth voices and use their perspectives to guide program design and improvement.

Visceral literacies of marginalized adolescents in digital spaces: A cross‐case synthesis exploring affect and dialogue with texts

AbstractTextual consumption in digital spaces has come under scrutiny by educators who worry about youth's surface‐level comprehension of such texts as well as the polarizing nature of online discourse. This paper synthesizes affective concepts of critical witness and glimmers of care to explore two cases in which adolescent writers in digital OST programs engage with digital communities surrounding texts like comics, movies, and video games. We trace how focal youth across the programs engage in critical witness around issues of marginalization in digital spaces outside of class in order to produce advocacy‐focused compositions addressing issues they encountered and discussed across informal digital learning spaces. We identified a common trajectory across both cases for these youth advocates: (1) experiencing and witnessing marginalization in digital spaces outside of class; (2) bringing critical witness to (digital) class; leading to (3) constellations of advocacy produced through compositions. Teachers can support such adolescents through affectively attuned instructional practices like framing spaces to center youth voices, providing multiple channels for peer conversation, inviting youth to co‐design expansive and creative assessments, and cultivating reciprocal understanding of power and vulnerability through practices of critical witness.

Shining a spotlight on youth involvement in mental health research: Challenges and innovations.

Despite progress in youth involvement in mental health research, considerable gaps remain in our understanding, conceptualisation, and implementation of involving children and young people in this field. This Editorial Perspective reflects on how these gaps present challenges to our research practices and often serve as barriers to meaningfully involving youth voices and experiences into the research process. We take a critical perspective to recent advances in the field of youth involvement in mental health research, reflected by the studies included in this special issue, and highlight examples of good practice paving the way for more equitable and inclusive approaches. Meaningful progress in mental health research relies on the active involvement of young people. Researchers, practitioners and policymakers have an ethical and moral responsibility to create a safe and inclusive environment that empowers young people to participate in research that impacts their lives, care, and overall quality of life.

Honouring Youth Voices through Partnership and Participation

Partnership between children and adults is a crucial component that provides children with the ability to access their rights under the UNCRC (1989). One aspect of this partnership is honouring the voices of young people by listening to them, providing them with safe spaces, to have rights-based discussions, and presenting children with opportunities to be able to voice themselves, and participate in society. Inspired by Landon Pearson’s legacy and following in the footsteps of her Shaking the Movers workshops initiative this research aims to honour the voices of the youth by conducting a Foucauldian discourse analysis on 40 Shaking the Movers reports to dissect and understand how children’s rights are impacted by adult influence, the importance of this partnership and how young people are experiencing their rights

“Everybody’s Mind is Different. Like, It’s Not Gonna Work the Same”: An Exploratory Study of Youth Perspectives on Mental Health

Youths’ perspectives, unique from adults, are shaped by their developmental experiences. This study contextualizes the meaning of mental health and being mentally healthy from adolescent perspectives. Four focus groups of students in grades 9 to 12 ( N = 27) were recruited from a school in an urban city. Participants were mainly female ( n = 22) and majority students of color (e.g., Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx; n = 21). Researchers interpreted the data through a pragmatic lens. Three main themes emerged: Describing Mental Health, Defining Mentally Healthy, and Integrating the Role of Social Environments. Two subthemes were also identified. The study highlights the significance of including youth contributions in defining terms such as mental health and being mentally healthy and underscores the importance of the environmental context to youth’s conceptualization of mental health, with a focus on resiliency-building factors. Findings have applicability for incorporating youth voice in interventions designed to improve youth mental health and foster positive youth development.

Amplifying youth voices: young people’s recommendations for policy and practice to enhance vaccine acceptability

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for increased vaccine availability and uptake, with vaccine hesitancy posing a significant barrier, particularly among young adults. Evidence from various countries highlight high levels of hesitancy among young people, necessitating targeted interventions. Engaging young adults as key stakeholders in shaping public health strategies is crucial, as their perspectives can enhance vaccine acceptance. This study aimed to assess the overall acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine among young people and to explore the factors influencing their willingness or reluctance to be vaccinated now and in the future.MethodsThis study used qualitative data from 165 young adults in Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia, to explore their suggestions for policies and strategies aimed at enhancing the acceptance of the Covid-19 vaccination among their age group. Data collection involved focus groups and interviews that explored participants’ perceptions and recommendations regarding COVID-19 vaccination acceptability. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.ResultsThematic analysis identified several factors influencing vaccine acceptability among young people and suggested recommendations to improve it. The themes included developing targeted communication strategies for accurate vaccine information, offering alternative vaccination methods, promoting vaccine education in schools, and using trusted public figures to share accurate information.ConclusionsPersistent dissatisfaction with vaccine information dissemination underscores the need for more targeted communication strategies among young adults. Recommendations include developing non-injection vaccine options, incorporating vaccine education into school curricula and community programs, and leveraging influential public figures to build credibility. These insights are valuable for designing future programs to enhance vaccine acceptance among adolescents.

The Centering of Youth Voice in the Development of a Virtual, Instructor-Led Physical Activity Program.

Providing youth the opportunity to express their attitudes toward and recommendations for improvement of a home-based physical activity (PA) program may help to improve engagement in virtual PA program activities. Youth voice is an often-overlooked component that may be necessary for understanding what contributes to low participation and may have important implications for long-term adherence. Informed by Self-Determination Theory, this study aimed to formatively evaluate home-based exercise videos, incorporating youth feedback for improvement in the development of the videos. Youth participated in four (8-minute) PA videos varying in type (strength; cardio; mindfulness; sports skill). Youth accessed the videos and answered open-ended questions via an online survey. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis to identify emerging themes in responses. Sixty-eight K-12 youth in the United States (52% girls; 38% non-White; 55% in K-5 grade; 17% in 6-8 grade; 28% in 9-12 grade) participated in this study. Overall, 61.9% of affective responses were positive, with mindfulness rating the highest and strength the lowest. Children were satisfied with the video structure, enjoyed having an opportunity to move at home and reported liking the engaging instructors. Suggestions were also given related to modifying video length, adding modifications for varying fitness levels, adding more kid-like features, and providing incentives. Youth recommendations may be used to create tailored adaptations and implementation supports for PA programs in the home. Findings from this study demonstrate that incorporating youth voice may be an important step toward increasing engagement in home-based PA programming.

Challenging Classical Music’s Genre Conventions: Findings from a Project on Youth Voice in Instrumental Education

Abstract This article explores classical music education through analysing findings from a project on embedding ‘youth voice’ within instrumental teaching and learning. Drawing on theorizations of classical music as a genre, I describe how the young people in this project saw classical music’s genre conventions as working against a youth voice approach. The article also outlines the ways in which youth voice was shaped through social relations in this space as well as the ‘institutional ecology’ of music education. I argue that embedding youth voice approaches in instrumental education will only be effective if the genre itself is open to transformation.

Prioritising communities: barriers to climate activism and political imagination among minoritised youth groups

ABSTRACT Minoritised youth voices are often underrepresented in climate action research. Despite the increasing interest in youth climate activism, there is still an overall lack of attention to the perspectives of young people struggling with discrimination, poverty, and other social injustices. In this article, we focus on a diverse group of minoritised youth in Portugal to explore their experiences of climate activism, perceived agency, and political imaginaries of the future. We conducted a qualitative study involving seven focus groups with 55 participants, including young people with a migrant background and/or living in underserved communities in Portugal. Based on a Reflexive Thematic Analysis, we generated three main themes that illustrate participants’ ways of engaging with climate change issues, the barriers that constrain their engagement with climate activism and the challenges in the political imagination of the future. Our findings suggest that minoritised youth would like to have a voice in political debates about climate change and that more inclusive dialogues about climate futures could help bridge existing territorial and social divides.

Youth voices: A participatory approach to promoting mental health literacy through digital means

Abstract A concerning number of young people worldwide experience mental health challenges, often compounded by limited mental health literacy, such as a lack of knowledge about how to recognize mental disorders and strategies for seeking help (Cairns & Rossetto, 2019). Therefore, it is crucial to promote mental health literacy among youth. Due to the scarcity and often high cost of readily available mental health services, as well as concerns about anonymity, digital programs have become an alternative means of reaching youth. To this end, a digital prevention program was developed. The pivotal question now is how to effectively promote young people’s mental health literacy through digital means, more specifically: How to develop (1) evidence-based and (2) target group-specific content? To investigate these questions, two systematic reviews were conducted that analyzed a total of 65 digital evidence-based mental health programs. Since the active use of programs also depends on how suitable and appealing the content is for the target group, a participatory approach was chosen to actively involve the target group in the process of developing the program’s design and content. Therefore, four participatory workshops were conducted in Slovenia, Poland, and Austria, with 12-15-year-old students (N = 182). Selected results from the systematic reviews and cross-national results from the workshops will be presented. It was found that psychoeducation is an important and effective method for promoting mental health literacy among youth and that young people prefer this content to be delivered as briefly and concisely as possible, and in a multimodal format. The discussion will highlight key takeaways regarding the benefits and challenges of this approach, emphasizing the necessity of including student voices in the creation of psychoeducational content for a digital mental health program in order to highlight and recognize young people’s right to participate. Key messages • The value of youth participation - Involving young people in the development of content for a digital mental health literacy program is a means to increase its relevance and appeal to them. • The intricacies of youth participation - Involving young people in the development of a digital mental health literacy program presents challenges that require careful consideration.

Supporting young people through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: a multi-site qualitative longitudinal study

BackgroundThroughout the COVID-19 pandemic, youth have experienced substantial stress due to abrupt changes in education, finances, and social life, compounding pre-existing stressors. With youth (ages 15–26) often at critical points in development, they are vulnerable to long-term mental health challenges brought on by pandemic trauma.MethodsTo identify youth experiences throughout the pandemic and examine changes over time, we conducted semi-structured interviews among n = 141 youth in two Canadian provinces (Ontario and British Columbia) and across the country of Ireland at three time points over the course of more than one year (August 2020-October 2021). We conducted a qualitative longitudinal analysis using an inductive content approach.ResultsCategories identified were (1) coping with hardship; (2) opportunities for growth; (3) adapting to new ways of accessing services; (4) mixed views on the pandemic: attitudes, behaviour, and perception of policy response; (5) navigating COVID-19 information; (6) transitioning to life after the pandemic; and (7) youth-led recommendations for government and service response. The findings also reveal trends in health and wellness in accordance with prolonged periods of lockdown, changes in weather, and return to normalcy after the availability of COVID-19 vaccines. Key recommendations from youth include incorporating youth voice into decision making, communicating public health information effectively to youth, enhancing service delivery post-pandemic, and planning for future pandemics.ConclusionsThese results provide insights into the extensive longitudinal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people across three geographical locations. Actively involving youth in decision making roles for future pandemics or public health emergencies is critical.

Centering and uplifting youth voice in planning for a more resilient climate future in rural Colorado: a case study of a student resilience team asking for change

Rural communities are increasingly facing challenges from climate-related natural hazards such as drought, wildfire, and flood. These cascading hazards threaten social, emotional, physical, and economic well-being, and pose unique challenges to rural areas which may already struggle to find enough resources. Yet, rural areas are rich in social capital, creativity, and resilience, and future leaders are learning how to build agency and increase their community’s resilience in school settings. Students in Estes Park, Colorado, have experienced major climate-fueled hazards in their lifetimes, surviving the floods in 2013 and the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak wildfires in 2020. At Estes Park Middle School, the Environmental Resilience Team (ERT) is an afterschool group of students who are actively participating in promoting public awareness, mitigation, and policy-making to increase resilience to natural hazards. Supported by the Hazard, Education, Awareness, and Resilience Task Force (HEART Force) Program, a comprehensive curriculum that immerses students in the study of their community’s resilience to floods and fires, in conjunction with the Earth Force Environmental Civic Action resources, students and educators gained the tools needed to spearhead community discussions on resilience, all while striving to mitigate and minimize future risks. In this paper, we tell the story of the Environmental Resilience Team’s campaign to pass statewide legislation to implement Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Building Codes in high-risk areas. Students visited the Colorado State Capitol, met with their State Senator and Governor to lobby for the passage of the bill. This initiative builds upon years of action projects, including service projects to mitigate fire risk in vulnerable populations within the mountain town of Estes Park and build community education and awareness through the distribution of “go-bags” to community members. By including youth voice in public decision-making and planning for climate resilience, community leaders and policymakers can develop more holistic plans that include multigenerational input. This research is part of a broader study across implementations of HEART Force in several classrooms that showed that the HEART Force program helped students develop a sense of agency and grow in their understanding of community resilience.

The process of developing an augmented reality (AR) tool for knowledge translation on climate change-related experiences among youth in Kenya

This report details a qualitative methodological approach of developing an Augmented Reality (AR) tool which integrates digital storytelling for context-specific, accessible, scalable participatory research knowledge translation on climate-related sexual health experiences among youth (aged 16-25 years) in Kenya. AR, which engages audiences through virtual images overlayed on the real world in real-time, enhances learning and knowledge retention. This suggests the potential for using this increasingly accessible technology in knowledge translation, despite such use being understudied. Our AR tool meaningfully incorporates seven digital storytelling videos made by youth in Kenya through a study in 2023, to amplify youth voices while illustrating complex pathways between four climate-related factors (drought, floods, extreme heat, and excess winds) and three HIV vulnerabilities (gender-based violence, early marriage, and transactional sex). The aim of this paper is to describe the design of an AR tool for knowledge translation, youth empowerment, and health promotion, and to outline how it can be harnessed for sexual health and climate change education to inform future knowledge translation approaches with youth climate-affected issues.

Youth Voices Participating in the Improvement of Sexual Consent Awareness Campaigns

Youth Voices Participating in the Improvement of Sexual Consent Awareness Campaigns