Youth-Adult Partnerships
Facilitator: Simone Sawyer, MSPH
Definition: The youth-adults partnership (YAP) work group is a multisector, multigenerational group that works collaboratively to meaningfully engage youth leadership, voice, and expertise in all of the work that they do. This work group is innovative in that it incorporates student voice, leadership and input into a typically top-down approach to designing school-based/district-level initiatives of youth mental health services.
Purpose: The YAP work group is a consistent space within the DC CoP for youth and adults to come together to listen, learn, grow, work, and share information across schools, organizations, and agencies. Members of the work group not only learn content but also learn best practices and processes for partnering with youth, with the hope that they will continue these practices in all of the spaces they are in.
Activities: The YAP work group is currently working on Virtual Wellness Centers with the Young Women’s Project, as well as youth-friendly Suicide Prevention materials with the Crisis Response and Intervention/Suicide Prevention practice group. Upcoming activities are community-based systems dynamics modeling, the DC Health Youth Advisory Council (YAC) Youth Mental Health Summit, the annual School Strengthening Survey and more. Youth and adults work together to decide which activities they would like to work on each month.
Upcoming WG Meetings