Engaging Youth for Positive Change

A Critical Analysis of Case Studies on Local Action

Abstract

*Youth Transforming Their Environments and Communities | Research Articles

This paper discusses the experiences and outcomes associated with Engaging Youth for Positive Change (EYPC), a youth civic engagement program developed to address clean indoor air policy, piloted in four Illinois communities. Youth involvement in public policy offers a potentially powerful tool for empowering youth to affect change, especially when youth representatives are involved as partners in identifying needs, conducting research, and making decisions. The EYPC program seeks to 1) facilitate a critical consciousness about factors at multiple levels that contribute to local problems; 2) facilitate a high level of understanding about power and politics; 3) make youth participants more effective in their efforts to advocate for a clean indoor air policy; and 4) teach youth participants how to collect and analyze data to further support their arguments when speaking to government officials and community members. The paper discusses the difficulty of reconciling a desire for deeper youth engagement with adult-directed civic education and policy goals, addresses youth experiences with the program, and discusses preliminary program outcomes and lessons learned.