Moving from Serving Youth to Engaging Youth

Moving from Serving Youth to Engaging Youth: Youth-led Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change Interventions in UC CalFresh Nutrition Education

Authors: Brandon Louie, Nancy Erbstein, Miranda Capriotti, Marisela Ceron, Wei-ting Chen, Monica Drazba, David Ginsburg, Melissa Morris, Metria Munyan, Hector Ochoa, Paul Tabarez, Jesse Tedrick, Mary Vollinger, and Mary Welch-Bezemek

This report examines three case studies from UC CalFresh SNAP-Ed nutrition education county programs who facilitated a youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) project as part of UC CalFresh's Youth Engagement Initiative during federal fiscal year 2017.  It is designed to highlight the YPAR process and inspire other SNAP-Ed programs to adopt similar approaches for authentically engaging young people in policy, systems, and environmental change strategies focused on nutrition, wellness, food access, and physical activity.  Launched in federal fiscal year 2016, the UC CalFresh Youth Engagement Initiative is exploring innovative strategies to shift from a focus on serving youth to engaging youth in nutrition and physical activity.  Projects within this initiative seek to empower young people from vulnerable communities to lead efforts to improve the environments where they live, play, eat, shop, and learn.  The UC Davis Center for Regional Change supports this initiative as a key partner in training, technical assistance, strategic planning, and program documentation.

To review the full report: Moving from Serving to Engaging Youth