Building YPAR Capacity: Principles and Practice for Youth-Led Change

Limited Training Opportunity! Click here to register for a free YPAR training course!

The YPAR Network is offering free virtual training covering key aspects of youth-led research. Strengthening Youth Voice: A Virtual YPAR Training Series for Adults to Partner with Youth is a 6-part video series designed for educators, youth workers, and public health professionals. Upon completion of the sessions and evaluations, participants will receive $75. Limited seats remain for the November cohort!

The following videos are designed to increase the capacity of adults who want to collaborate with young people for youth participatory action research (YPAR). This project is made possible through a partnership between University of California Berkeley, Innovations For Youth, Colorado School of Public Health-Center for Public Health Practice with support from the YPAR Network. It is the network’s intention that watching the modules will help develop the knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy of educators conducting this work. Each 20-30 minute video is designed to support adults to plan and execute YPAR.

To access each video, please click the links below.

Video 1: What is YPAR?

This video covers the basics of YPAR and how it is different from other forms of youth participation, addressing the steps of YPAR and additional resources in the planning of YPAR.

Video 4: Power-sharing in YPAR

This video focuses on adult and youth dynamics, power dynamics, and and strategies for sharing power with young people within YPAR.

Video 2: Why Engage in YPAR?

This video covers the developmental needs of adolescents and how they can be achieved through YPAR while describing the multiple benefits of YPAR for youth, adults, and the broader community.

Video 5: Investigating a Topic

This video focuses on 3 steps of the YPAR process: identifying a problem or opportunity; collecting information and data; and analyzing and interpreting data. 

Video 3: Planning for YPAR

This video is focused on important questions to consider when constructing a YPAR team, bringing to life parts of the planning considerations outlined in this YPAR planning guide.

Video 6: Putting Action in YPAR

This video explore action in YPAR, focusing on developing reccomendations, identifying an audience, disseminating findings, and making change.

The YPAR Network is a broad network of diverse YPAR scholars and practitioners across the United States that will expand and refine YPAR practice, and increase the reach, evidence base, and impact of YPAR. YPAR is an innovative, equity-focused approach to positive youth and community development in which young people conduct systematic research to improve their lives, communities, and the institutions intended to serve them. As a participatory research approach, YPAR values youth voice and promotes healthier development and empowerment for young people across the lifespan. YPAR researchers and youth engaged in YPAR utilize a range of quantitative and qualitative research methods in cycles of inquiry and action. 

Join the YPAR Network of practitioners and scholars via our mailing list here. Join our LinkedIn group here.

These videos were made possible through funding from the Bezos Family Foundation.