Youth engagement efforts in schools and communities bolster community impact as young people build leadership and life skills by sharing in decision-making, establishing a sense of self-efficacy, and exploring college and career pathways. Key strategies for supporting youth-led efforts for healthy eating and active living include:
- Youth and Teens as Teachers: Trained youth teach lessons to younger students, giving back to their community while learning.
- Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR): Youth researchers explore issues and recommended solutions, centering youth voice in community change.
- Student Nutrition Advisory Council (SNAC): Youth leaders support healthy school food and nutrition education by focusing on changes in and around the school cafeteria.
- Youth-led Gardening: Garden leaders support educational activities through learning, working, and eating in the garden.
Research shows that youth involved in youth engagement activities report positive experiences and growth in competence, confidence, connection, caring, character, and contribution to their community (Worker, S.M, et al, Journal of Adolescent Research, 2019). Additionally, research indicates the potential for youth engagement efforts to promote health equity by impacting social determinants of health (Ozer, E.J., et al, American Journal of Community Psychology, 2020).
The resources on this webpage are designed to help schools and community organizations support and facilitate youth engagement.
Evaluation Resources
View CalFresh Healthy Living, UC-recommended Youth Engagement evaluation tools.
CFHL, UC Trainings
Explore recorded webinars and training-related resources for youth engagement and other program topics.
General Resources
Explore practical resources to support meaningful youth engagement, including activities, tip sheets, guides, and tools that help foster participation, build leadership skills, and promote positive youth development.
- Icebreakers, Check-Ins, & Check-Outs
- Build belonging for youth participants by including icebreakers, check-ins, and check-outs to your meeting. This slide deck includes ideas and examples.
- Engaging Youth Tip Sheet
- Consider opportunities to increase engagement of youth in a classroom or out-of-school-time setting. This tip sheet provides simple ideas for getting started.
- Healthy Habits for Real Life: Teen Guide to Healthy Living
- Skills and knowledge around health topics enable youth to make healthy behavior choices. This guide can be used as background information and activities for training youth leaders or as educational material for any adolescent youth.
- Positive Youth Development – 4-H Beyond Ready Framework Training Series
- Positive Youth Development – 4-H Beyond Ready Framework Training Series: Positive youth development approaches encourage supporting young people’s development through a strengths-based lens. These training videos walk through key components of positive youth development as a foundation for community- and school-based programs.
Student Nutrition Advisory Council (SNAC) Resources
Student Nutrition Advisory Council (SNAC) engages youth as leaders of nutrition and physical activity in the school community, often focusing on supporting improvements in and around the school cafeteria.
- Overview
- Learn about SNAC as a youth engagement strategy in this video.
- 4-H SNAC Guide
- The 4-H SNAC Guide describes plans and steps for facilitating a youth SNAC club.
- Advancing Youth Engagement and Standards Through SNAC
- Incorporation of youth engagement strategies into school-based programs can help meet educational standards. This resource details SNAC programming and standards it helps meet.
This [food waste] project empowered me to be a part of the solution and I’m now more mindful of my own consumption habits. I learned the value of youth voice in driving meaningful engagement in creating effective solutions. Presenting our findings to local leaders was a highlight showing me the potential for youth-led research to inform real world change."
– YPAR Youth Researcher, Riverside County
Youth and Teens as Teachers Resources
Youth and Teens as Teachers aims to equip youth with an opportunity to learn, grow, and service their communities by leading lessons and activities.
- Overview
- Learn about youth and teens as teachers as a youth engagement strategy in this video.
- Guide – This guide includes background information, context, and resources for facilitating youth and teens as teachers programming.
- Planning Worksheet – Utilize this worksheet to aid in planning for youth and teens as teachers programming. This resource is also available in the appendix of the Youth and Teens as Teachers Guide.
- Reflection and Feedback Tool – Use this tool for youth to conduct self-reflection after they teach a lesson and also to provide feedback to youth on the lesson they taught. Providing youth an opportunity to reflect first encourages agency and development, while feedback from supportive adults fosters growth. This resource is also available in the appendix of the Youth and Teens as Teachers Guide.
- Template Slide Deck for Training Youth Teachers – Customize these template slides for use in training youth to be a part of a youth and teens as teachers program.
- Advancing Youth Engagement and Standards Through Cooking Academy
- Incorporation of youth engagement strategies into school-based programs can help meet educational standards. This resource details Cooking Academy as a Youth and Teens as Teachers program and standards it helps meet.
- Youth and Teens as Teachers in Action: Cooking Academy Video – Older youth teaching nutrition and cooking skills to younger youth through Cooking Academy in Sacramento County in this youth and teens as teachers in action video.
Youth-led Gardening Resources
Youth garden leaders support school and community health through learning, working, teaching, and eating in the garden.
- Overview
- Learn about youth-led gardening as a youth engagement strategy in this video.
- Youth-led Gardening Guide
- Utilize this guide to support facilitating a youth-led gardening program.
- Advancing Youth Engagement and Standards Through Youth-led Gardening
- Incorporation of youth engagement strategies into school-based programs can help meet educational standards. This resource details Youth-led Gardening programming and standards it helps meet.
- Youth-led Gardening in Action: Garden Leaders
- Youth garden leaders highlight their experiences in this youth-led gardening in action video.
Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR)
Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) centers youth voice in investigating issues and leading change interventions in the community.
- Community Futures, Community Lore Stepping Stones YPAR Toolkit
- This toolkit supports the design and facilitation of YPAR projects, with adaptable activities and resources for 9 distinct project phases compiled into downloadable PDF guides.
- SNAP-Ed Stepping Stones YPAR Toolkit – SNAP-Ed approved version of the YPAR toolkit, derived from the tools on the Community Futures, Community Lore website.
- Achieving California's Educational Content Standards with YPAR
- These one-pagers highlighting how participation in a YPAR project can help students across grade levels achieve California’s Content Standards in STEM, History-Social Science, English Language Arts, and Health Education.
- Project Planning Guides
- Planning tools outlining suggested timelines and sequences of activities for YPAR projects of varying lengths, including ones that are 6-sessions long, 12-sessions long, or span a full school year.
- Youth Career Pathways Toolkit
- This toolkit contains adaptable activities and materials to incorporate a focus on college and career readiness into YPAR and other youth engagement programming, helping youth participants draw deeper connections and leverage what they’re learning and accomplishing to build their own career pathways.
- YPAR and Youth Career Pathways Overview Videos (Coming soon!)
- Examples of CFHL, UC YPAR Projects – Highlights projects in action and shares detailed examples of the use of YPAR within the Youth Engagement Initiative.
- Orientation to YPAR – Provides a brief introduction to YPAR with a review of an overarching framework and exploration of shorter-term project models we developed to support broader use of this approach.
- YPAR Resources – Explores the resources we used and adapted to implement YPAR so others can see what’s available for their own efforts.
- Career Pathways Background and Project Examples – Details how we embedded a focus on college and career readiness into our youth engagement work and highlights examples of how YPAR projects integrated career pathways activities.
- Orientation to the Youth Career Pathways Toolkit – Provides a brief overview of the Youth Career Pathways Toolkit, which helps facilitators incorporate a focus on college and career readiness into their YPAR projects and other youth engagement programming.
- YPAR and Youth Career Pathways Overview Videos (Coming soon!)
- Exploring the Challenges and Benefits of Online Youth-led Nutrition Programs (California Agriculture Article)
- Study led by University of California Cooperative Extension Advisors assesses the challenges, strategies and benefits of online YPAR programming, and examines future program implications from the perspectives of both nutrition educators and youth.
- Documentation Reports
- Annual reports with detailed project profiles, lessons learned and impacts from all 54 YPAR projects implemented within the CalFresh Healthy Living, UC program's Youth Engagement Initiative from FFY 2017 through 2026.
- FFY 2026: Cultivating Youth Leaders for Community Health (Coming soon!) – Provides profiles of 4 YPAR projects and a retrospective exploration of 10 years of YPAR implementation within the Youth Engagement Initiative.
- FFY 2025: Tending to Tomorrow – Highlights 8 YPAR projects with detailed case studies that include their incorporation of career pathways activities.
- FFY 2024: Nourishing Futures – Profiles 4 YPAR projects and provides a high-level review of YPAR evaluation analyses generated in FFY 2023, comparing youth responses across grade levels and YPAR project models.
- FFY 2023: Strengthening Pathways – Provides profiles of 7 YPAR projects and examines lessons learned from piloting the Youth Career Pathways Toolkit and the shorter YPAR project models.
- FFY 2022: Meeting Youth Where They Are – Highlights 6 YPAR projects, explores lessons learned from piloting the shorter YPAR project models, and details the development of the Youth Career Pathways Toolkit.
- FFY 2020-21: Staying Connected – Profiles 12 YPAR projects, focusing on how youth-led efforts were adapted, sustained, and expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic through developing and piloting of 6-session and 12-session facilitation models.
- FFY 2019: Growing Capacity – Provides profiles of 5 YPAR projects and analysis of professional development and organizational supports needed to facilitate YPAR.
- FFY 2018: Building Together – Highlights 6 YPAR projects and explores the critical role of partnerships in youth-led policy, systems and environmental (PSE) change interventions.
- FFY 2017: Moving from Serving Youth to Engaging Youth – Explores deep-dive case studies of 3 YPAR projects and lessons learned from first year YPAR implementation, training and technical assistance.
- In Action Videos
- Explore videos featuring YPAR projects that highlight youth-led research and action to improve school and community health.
- Contra Costa Water Access and Appeal Project – Youth researchers identify sugar-sweetened beverage consumption at their high school school and explore solutions to improve water consumption.
- Imperial Food Waste Project – Elementary youth researchers investigate food waste in their school cafeteria through YPAR.
- Imperial Healthy Food Choices Project – High school youth researchers discover students purchase lunch from food trucks instead of eating from the school cafeteria.