Examining a Pedagogical Strategy for Engaging Youth in Participatory Health Equity Research

• In Event: Centering Liberatory Health Equity Lenses in Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Promotion of Youth Well-Being

Abstract

Objective/Purpose
This paper focuses on a facilitation strategy in a youth participatory action research project (YPAR) focused on policy recommendations for transformative systems of school mental health. Youth researchers discussed their proposed policy recommendations using language from a fictional story, which scaffolded their understanding of applying a liberatory health equity lens to school mental health research.

Perspectives
Research on the pedagogies of YPAR name the tension inherent in the role of adult facilitator. The role of the adult facilitator is not neutral (Kirshner, 2010). Adult facilitators in YPAR must give youth access to “mature research practices,” and must lead conversations that “denaturalize” dominant, individualistic ways of thinking while youth make sense of their own experiences and relevant data (Kirshner, 2010).

Methods
The YPAR group read the Raining Rocks story (Berkeley YPAR Hub, 2025) about a fictional town that had disagreements about solving the issue of a rich man throwing rocks down a mountain that were hitting and injuring community members. Some community members built a red cross tent to give immediate care to the injured, representing tertiary prevention– treating symptoms. Others built a net to catch the rocks, representing secondary prevention– preventing the emergence of symptoms after exposure to a stressor. A third group wanted to go up the mountain and stop the man from throwing rocks, representing primary prevention and promotion– addressing the root cause of health inequity and building community capacity (Compton & Shim, 2020).

Data
Data includes transcriptions of two hour-long Zoom meetings in which youth discussed how the Raining Rocks story informed their policy recommendations. I used thematic qualitative coding to understand how youth applied the language from the story in discussing their recommendations.

Results
Youth said that it was necessary to combine primary, secondary and tertiary strategies for prevention, but community members who wanted to go up the mountain were characterized as “radical,” which reflected their real-life observations.
Youth rarely discussed secondary prevention, but their recommendations included secondary prevention, like giving teachers resources to cope with job-related stress.
Youth used the “red cross” metaphor to describe recommendations like implementing mental health days, which would give students a break from the stress they were experiencing, but would not address the causes of stress for students.
Youth used the “going up the mountain” metaphor to describe recommendations like engaging students in decision-making to change the systems that were causing them stress.
Students understood some recommendations, like culturally relevant curriculum, as encompassing multiple strategies for prevention by promoting feelings of belonging and helping students “be more aware of what the people on top of the hill are doing.”

Scholarly Significance
Research and resources are needed to help adults guide youth in developing critical perspectives on issues related to systems of youth mental health. This paper adds to the research literature on YPAR pedagogy by describing a pedagogical strategy for engaging youth in applying a liberatory health equity lens in school mental health research. Results indicate that youth thoughtfully applied a critical health equity lens to their research.

Author

• Kate Somerville, University of Virginia