Youth Engagement in Decisions for Healthy Living

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Youth Engagement in Decisions for Healthy Living
A Narrative Study Lisa Loiselle, Wilfrid
Laurier University, Waterloo, ON Centre of
Excellence for Youth Engagement
The Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement
(CEYE), a Health Canada-funded program, is a
consortium of 27 individuals and organizations
from across the country that includes youth,
academics, health professionals, and leaders from
youth-serving agencies all committed to engaging
youth. The CEYE is committed to finding,
describing and building models of effective
strategies for engaging youth in meaningful
participation and making healthy decisions for
healthy living.
To summarize what we have learned so far, a model
has been developed and includes the main elements
of the process of youth engagement based on the
stories we heard from youth. You will also find a
written summary of what the model means (in the
handout) and quotes to further capture young
peoples experiences of engagement and
involvement.
ENGAGEMENT is the meaningful participation and
sustained involvement of a young person in an
activity, with a focus outside of him or herself.
Full engagement consists of a behavioural
component,an affective component, and a cognitive
component

• Initiating Factors (based on the response to
  questions like, How did you first get involved?
  and Was there any particular event or experience
  that got you started being involved?)
• MOTIVATION
• I didnt become involved in music because my
  mother dragged me to music lessonsthis was
  something I was really interested inthat came
  from inside of me (Want to)
• I feel I need to get involved because I feel
  its my responsibility as a human being (Need
  to)
• We had a requirement to do some volunteer work
  at our school (Had to)
• OPPORTUNITY
• My social worker came up to me and she was all
  like you know this is happening and I think youd
  be a good candidate for it (Influenced by
  another person)
• I started to attend conferences and
  conferences led into other conferences which led
  into meeting which led into representation of
  companies and NGOs (Participation in other
  activities)
• The only reason I found out about that was
  because they came in my school and announced that
  the auditions were happening. (Advertisements)

Rationale

• Youth engagement in a variety of activities
  (e.g., extracurricular activities, community
  service) has been found to predict a number of
  positive outcomes.
• However, the process by which these outcomes are
  achieved and the ways in which adults and
  institutions may promote such engagements are not
  well understood.
• Further, there is relatively little information
  from the perspective of the youth themselves
  about their involvement in these activities.
• From these stories, we hoped to better
  understand the reasons why some young people get
  involved in activities that they enjoy and that
  help them to learn useful things, while other
  young people have trouble finding activities that
  are exciting to them.
• We think that this information will help us
  design programs that will help youth who are
  having difficulty becoming engaged in activities
  to be more successful.

What did we do?

• Obtain real life stories from 125 young people
  from across Canada
• 51 participated in individual face-to-face
  interviews
• 74 participated in one of 8 focus groups
• Interviews and focus groups were conducted by
  trained youth (mean age 20.25 range 15-26)

Who were the participants?

• 125 young people (56 males 66 females 3
  unknown) from across Canada shared their real
  life stories with us
• The majority of youth (two-thirds) were between
  the ages of 15 and 18, but ranged in age from 14
  to 24 years (one person was 33 years of age 11
  ages were unknown)
• Of those youth who were involved in the
  interview
• 38 were either attending school or planning to
  return to school in the fall 2001 8 were not in
  school 5 unknown
• 30 of the youth worked (number of hours ranged
  from 10-50 per week) whereas, 16 did not
  working status of remaining 5 were unknown
• 37 youth considered themselves to be
  engaged/involved 5 defined themselves as
  somewhat engaged/involved 9 defined themselves
  as not engaged/involved
• 27 youth were engaged in school activities (11
  did not 2 unknown) whereas 39 in activities
  outside of school (6 did not 4 unknown)

• Sustaining Factors (based on the response to
  several questions including, What keeps you
  involved?)
• INDIVIDUAL
• Ive met a lot of people across the country and
  so Ive made so many more friends.
• ORGANIZATIONAL
• Theres always people that support you or else
  you would never keep on going. You know what I
  mean like, theres always at least one person
  saying its excellent that youre here and youre
  doing a great job and, because if that wouldnt
  happen you wouldnt be there.
• COMMUNITY AND SOCIETAL
• knowing that I am making a difference and
  knowing that you know I can change things, and
  that things wont stay the same if I am out there
  doing something about it and make things better
  for my kids or for the next generation

• Barriers (based on the response to several
  questions including, Have you ever had any
  problems staying involved? and What has kept
  you from getting involved?
• PERSONAL
• Mostly time. Like I guess I try and get
  involved in a lot of things and I really dont
  have time to do everything well. So, I have to
  stop a few of them and its just, its not
  because I dont want to get engaged, its because
  I just dont have the time to.
• SCHOOL/FAMILY/ORGANIZATIONAL
• there is a lot of stuff I couldnt get engaged
  in because, like just the fact that my parents
  didnt agree with the things I might have gone to
  and engaged in
• COMMUNITY/SOCIETAL
• I had the opportunity to be kinda like the
  office manager of the community police station
  and I gave that up because again, adults dont
  listen to what I have to say.
• GLOBAL/STRUCTURAL
• I think from my experience and what Ive seen
  of like initiatives by government or other groups
  to get students involved, they make a good effort
  but they generally are failing because at the
  same time theyre trying to get students and
  young people involved, at the same time theres
  this force out there saying you should live for
  money, you should live for these particular
  consumer items

What did the youth tell us?

• Youth defined themselves as being involved or
  engaged in either in-school or out-of-school
  activities.
• In-school activities included being active in
  school clubs, the arts, student government,
  recreation and leisure activities, a number of
  student associations and committees, leadership
  training and mentorship programs, and the school
  newspaper
• Out of school activities included participating
  in recreation and leisure activities, performing
  and visual arts, music, community, religion and
  cultural programs, national and political
  organizations, activism and technological
  activities
• Young people also identified issues that were
  important to them including school and community
  violence, gender and cultural issues, the
  environment, human rights, education, politics,
  economics, labour rights, globalization, tobacco
  and smoking issues, homelessness, women and
  childrens issues, health, poverty, abuse and
  youth suicide

It is those individuals, that can navigate their
way around these barriers and have managed to
cope with the difficulties that they encounter,
that will endure with respect to youth
engagement. Through engagement, youth gain a
sense of empowerment as individuals and form
healthy connections to others, which are
reflected in the reduction of risk behaviours and
increases in positive activities.