Only in a field of dreams (do some of you remember that film?), if you build it they will come. In reality and in the field of mental health promotion, if you build it together or they build it, they’re already there. Not about us without us.
Youth engagement is a topic of long-standing interest. Learning about promising approaches needs to keep pace with identities, social issues, many contexts and cultures that are constantly changing. Enter the pandemic for example. It alone challenged an assumption that youth engagement cannot be effective online.
Projects supported through the Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund let us know they were keen to share their recent experiences about youth engagement. They did so at November’s Hub webinar. Results of that sharing are available in the webinar’s Event Brief.
Given such keen interest in the topic and its importance for mental health promotion, the Hub also added to its annotated resources on youth engagement. Our selections are in keeping with the Hub’s commitments to not duplicate the excellent work of others, to honour multiple ways of knowing, and to support projects that are diverse in their participants, sectors, and the purpose of youth engagement, such as policy or program development, research and online approaches.
As always, the Hub’s invitation remains open for resources you have found especially helpful and for other topics of interest.