Youth Voices for Change Overview

Youth Voices for Change engages a diverse team of youth in understanding and recording the neighborhood conditions that affect their lives, and expresses their hopes and aspirations for the future.  Youth will create an interactive web-based map that includes videos, photographs, writings and drawings to illustrate their voices.  Youth Voices for Change offers young people an opportunity to be heard and to share their thoughts with adults in the community and the region.  This project offers a model of youth engagement, influence and action for other regional communities and organizations.

Project Activities

• Youth Mapping Workshops - These workshops will include a combination of focus groups, discussions, mapping activities, site visits and production meetings.  Photographs, videos, audio and written recordings reflecting youth perceptions of their community will be created.

• Community Walk-Abouts - Youth will share their stories with local and regional partners through a guided tour of their community.  Youth participants will lead community members on a walking tour of the neighborhood, highlighting youth views of the neighborhood.

• Youth Voices Map Production - Youth will produce a Youth Voices map, using the information obtained through workshop activities.  This map will be the centerpiece in an interactive website intended to capture the perceptions of youth in the Capital region.

• Sustainability Map - This phase will include a synthesis of youth voices and planning for ongoing youth contributions, including training of other regional groups to conduct similar youth mapping projects.

Project Partners and Participants

Photo by Miroslava Chavez-Garcia

Project partners include staff, researchers and faculty from across the UC Davis campus.  Key UC Davis partners are the Art of Regional Change and the CRESS Center/School of Education.  A community partner on the project is Youth In Focus, a non-profit intermediary organization that supports young people to conduct youth-let participatory action research, evaluation, and planning.

Phase one of Youth Voices for Change focuses on three strategies.  One team, led by Patsy Eubanks Owens and jesikah maria ross will work with youth from West Sacramento through the West Sacramento Youth Resource Coalition (WSYRC) and its Sactown Heroes program.  In addition, the project will consult with and involve other organizations in the community such as the Bryte and Broderick Community Action Group.  A second team, led by Kindra Montgomery will draw on a series of youth-produced videos created through the Sierra Health Foundation's REACH initiative to analyze youth perspectives on health, education, violence and other pressing issues.  A third team, let by Youh In Focus will integrate the Healthy Youth/Healthy Regions themes into their existing youth-led action research with under-represented youth and organizations throughout the region.

Expected Outcomes

Youth will

• have an opportunity to work with other youth across neighborhoods, cultures and ethnicities.

• share their views of where they live and inform policies, practices and funding in the region.

• learn skills in photography, video production and map making, as well as public presentation techniques and group decision-making.

Youth-serving organizations and communities will

• learn about youth views to inform their planning efforts.

• have a model of youth engagement from which to learn, replicate and expand.

Policy Makers/Leaders will

• gain unique insights into how to better support organizations and communities to listen and respond to the unique views of youth.

Researchers will

• increase their critical understanding of youth disparities and well-being on a regional scale.