Pre-planning is an essential process to lay the groundwork for a YACH project. It helps the group avoid issues that can derail youths’ best efforts later. Through pre-planning, the group establishes clear expectations about group behavior and a clear definition of the community they plan to serve. This is also a time for facilitators to […]

Choosing Your Battle is the first official step in the project cycle. It pushes youth to look deeper at the community they have chosen to serve. It helps them to understand it in a new way. Youth will then begin to dive into the things about their community that are wonderful and those that are […]

Raising Awareness allows youth to think about how they want to communicate their goals, gather community feedback, and discover how their community partners can support them. While this step is sometimes overlooked, raising awareness is an important opportunity for youth to gain perspective on the need and refine their ideas. It is great practice for […]

Making an action plan is such an important step to clearly lay out action steps, involvement, resources, and goals of the project. During the pre-planning, choose your battle, and raise awareness sections, youth should have added several pieces to their action plan already. Now is the time to create a full plan for the project. […]

Implementation pulls together all the work that youth have done. During this step, youth follow the action plan to implement the project and evaluate as they go. Youth should make sure to communicate to the community about their efforts.   Watch the video below for a short overview of Implement Youth Plan. In the Guidebook, […]

Evaluation should occur throughout the entire project as well as at the end. Individual and group reflection, especially in a youth participatory action research project, provide the youth with opportunities to look back on their recent experience. It helps them think about their contributions, what they learned, and how they want to move forward. Take […]