The power of youth engagement in policy, programs and knowledge translation

Abstract

Engagement in the decisions that affect them is positive for both youth and services across many sectors. Youth engagement is at the heart of all that we do at Wisdom2Action. It‘s a commitment, an approach and a promising practice that we promote across the youth serving sector. Young people gather on our Youth Advisory Committee, they sit on our Governing Board, identify and develop projects, lead mentoring projects with other organizations on youth engagement and lead our community engagement events. Since 2013, we have been providing guidance and training to organizations and governments across Canada and internationally on youth engagement. We have also modelled youth engagement as a promising practice through our public events.

In 2013, we completed a knowledge synthesis report on youth engagement (Zinck, Ungar, Whitman, Exenberger, LeVert-Chaisson, Liebenberg, Ung, & Forshner, 2013). In 2018, this report was updated in advance of the first national Canadian conference on youth engagement led by Wisdom2Action. This presentation will engage participants in shared learning about how to implement youth engagement in diverse organizations and contexts.