Abstracts
Abstract
We examined students’ perspectives on well-being and youth engagement in schools using a Youth Participatory Action Research approach. Students (N = 11) trained as peer researchers and then interviewed their peers. Interviews (N = 21) were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and six themes were developed: desire for versus reality of a healthy school, insufficient school strategies to promote well-being and mitigate harm, listening to and actioning students’ ideas, diverse opportunities for student engagement, pre-conceived ideas of student capability, and importance of a support role. Through this project, we peered deeper into students’ viewpoints about well-being and youth engagement in their schools.
Keywords:
- Comprehensive school health,
- Participatory,
- School well being,
- Student engagement,
- Youth voice
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Appendices
Biographical notes
Julia C. Kontak (she/her) is a PhD in Health Candidate and an Emerging Scholar at the Healthy Populations Institute, Dalhousie University. Julia's research interests are broadly focused on how to create supportive environments for health and well-being, particularly as it relates to children and youth. Specifically, her doctoral research focuses on the school setting to understand the process of student engagement in Health Promoting Schools (HPS). She uses participatory co-design methods to engage participants as partners including children and youth across the research process. She is also a Research Associate at UpLift, a school-community-partnership that aims to catalyze and support HPS efforts across Nova Scotia.
Hilary A. T. Caldwell is a CIHR Health System Impact Fellow with the Healthy Populations Institute at Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. As a graduate student in Kinesiology at McMaster University, Hilary conducted research about physical literacy, physical activity, and fitness across childhood. Currently, Hilary is researching how schools and communities can support children and youth’s physical activity, health, and well-being.
Rena Kulczycki is a facilitator, program designer, and consultant living in the unceded ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq people. They have over 30 years of experience as participant, designer and trainer in youth engagement, community development, and systems change initiatives. Along with self-directed learning, this experience-based training informs their work as the Provincial Youth Engagement Coordinator for the UpLift Partnership, contributing expertise in Youth Engagement practices, project and research design and resource development. Rena works primarily in community-based projects, applying trauma informed and anti-oppressive lenses while facilitating processes to move groups and projects towards their goals.
Camille Hancock Friesen is a congenital cardiothoracic surgeon who has been in practice for more than 20 years and currently is appointed as Professor in the Department of Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery at University of Nebraska Medical Center and is a consultant pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at Children’s Nebraska. Dr. Hancock Friesen’s clinical and research interests include moving upstream of complications in congenital cardiac surgery, youth vascular biology (pulsewave velocity), and systems-level approaches to health and well-being in children and youth. She is co-lead of the UpLift Partnership with Dr. Sara Kirk.
Sara F. L. Kirk is a Professor of Health Promotion, School of Health and Human Performance and the past Scientific Director of the Healthy Populations Institute, Dalhousie University. The focus of her research is the creation of supportive environments for chronic disease prevention, and she is the co-lead of the UpLift Partnership, a school-community-university partnership to support youth engagement in the Health Promoting Schools approach in Nova Scotia.