Over two days, 22 participants representing Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, PVAMU Extension, the Boys & Girls Club of Deep East Texas, 4-H, local government, and the Master Wellness Volunteer program gathered for the Engaging Youth in Designing Healthier Communities Summit to explore evidence-based strategies for building healthier communities through youth engagement, empowerment, and leadership. Through presentations, interactive activities, and group discussions, summit participants examined best practices, case studies, and practical tools that can be applied in their own settings to support youth-led healthier community projects.
Building a Foundation for Meaningful Youth Engagement
A central focus of the summit was understanding youth voice and what meaningful youth engagement and empowerment looks like.
Participants explored Hart’s Ladder of Participation (seen below), which illustrates different levels of youth involvement, ranging from tokenism to shared decision-making and youth-led action. Summit participants reflected on how youth are currently engaged in their communities and identified opportunities for where they could move up the ladder where youth take on more leadership.
The summit also introduced the Spectrum of Engagement. This framework demonstrates how engagement can progress from informing and consulting community members to involving, collaborating with, and empowering them. Through discussion and reflection, participants considered how organizations can intentionally create opportunities that support deeper youth participation and leadership.
Together, these frameworks reinforced an important concept: youth are more than program participants. When young people are engaged as partners, advisors, and leaders, communities benefit from their perspectives, creativity, and lived experiences. While these frameworks can guide how we engage youth, they can also empower youth to engage community members, build partnerships, and foster shared ownership of healthier community initiatives. The communities and spaces youth seek to improve belong to everyone.
Understanding How Communities Shape Healthy Choices
The summit also explored how community environments influence opportunities to make healthier choices.
Participants were introduced or reintroduced to the Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change (PSE) Framework, an approach that focuses on modifying the environment to make healthier choices practical and available to all community members. Rather than relying solely on individual behavior change, PSE strategies address the broader policies, systems, and environments that make healthier choices easier to make.
Turning Youth Engagement into Community Action
Building on the concepts of meaningful engagement and environmental change, participants explored how youth can move from being consulted to becoming active leaders in community projects.
A key focus of the summit was learning tools that youth (and communities) can use to assess and improve their local food and physical activity environments. Participants explored tools designed to inventory and assess their environments as well as pilot test potential strategies to improve their environments.
While exploring these tools, summit participants considered how youth could use tools to:
- Identify community assets
- Recognize barriers that limit opportunities for healthier communities
- Engage community stakeholders in meaningful conversations
- Develop recommendations for improving local environments
- Support community-driven solutions that promote long-term change
Together, these tools reinforced a central theme of the summit: when youth are empowered and given meaningful opportunities to lead, they can play a powerful role in shaping healthier communities.
Looking Ahead
As summit participants return to their communities, they have practical strategies for elevating youth voices and supporting youth-led efforts that create positive and lasting change.
Because they completed the 2026 Summit, participants are eligible to apply for WOW-E technical assistance to support a group of youth in using one of the tools they learned at the Summit to support a youth – led healthier community initiative or project. We look forward to seeing youth lead initiatives that support healthier food and physical activity environments.
References
European Minority Youth Inclusion. (2016, February 5). How to engage active participation of minority young people? Hart’s ladder of participation. WordPress. View source
Hart, R. A. (1992). Children’s participation: From tokenism to citizenship. UNICEF International Child Development Centre.
International Association for Public Participation. (2018). IAP2 spectrum of public participation. IAP2.
Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. (2023). TRUST checklist priority 2: Develop meaningful & lasting relationships with your community. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Author’s Note: Artificial intelligence (AI) tools were used to support drafting and editing. The author reviewed all content for accuracy and is responsible for the final text.
