Actualizing children’s participation in the development of outdoor play areas at an early childhood institution

Abstract

Background: Mental health challenges are a leading health concern for youth globally, requiring a comprehensive approach incorporating promotion, prevention and treatment within a healthy public policy framework. However, the broad enactment of this vision has yet to be realized. Further, mental health promotion evidence speci c to youth is still emerging and has not yet focused at a policy level. This is a critical gap, as policy is a key mental health promotion lever that can alter the social and structural conditions that contribute to shaping youth mental health outcomes for all youth, across the full spectrum of need. Responsive to this research and intervention priority, our prototype study intervention-the Agenda Gap-is comprised of an innovative, multi-media engagement intervention, developed in collaboration with youth. This intervention aims to equip youth and build capacity for them to lead meaningful policy change re ective of the mental health needs of diverse communities of youth, including those who experience structural vulnerability and who would not typically have had their voice represented in policymaking processes. Methods: This study will use a multiple case study design and mixed methods grounded in a realist approach and will be conducted in three sites across two Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Alberta). In an earlier phase of this research, we collaboratively designed the prototype intervention with youth, community and policy partners. In this phase of the study, the intervention will be implemented and further tested with new groups of youth collaborators (n=10-15/site). Outcome data will be collected through realist qualitative interviews, validated questionnaires (i.e., Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-12), General Self-E cacy (GSE) Scale, and the Critical Consiousness Scale (CCS)) and additional survey items developed by our study team. Analysis will focus on identi cation of key context-mechanism-outcome con gurations to provide comprehensive insights into how this intervention works, for whom, and in what context. Discussion: This study is unique in its "upstream" focus on youth-engaged policymaking as a tool for improving the social and structural conditions that in uence youth mental health across socioecological levels. Through the

Teachers’ practices mediate the association between teachers’ ideas and children’s perceived participation in early childhood education

“…Presentations of children's work (Knauf, 2017;Pettersson, 2015) or children's participation in the resolution of peer disputes (Mashford-Scott & Church, 2011) are also examples of practices to promote children's voice and expression of interests. In addition, free play (Freitas Luís et al, 2015) and active experiences (Nah & Lee, 2016) are also described as favouring children's participation.…”

Comparing and Contrasting Action Research and Action Learning

“…Professor Nah, a Korean action researcher, examined how young children's participation can be actualized, and their perspectives respected, through an action research project that engaged them in the development of an outdoor play area in their childcare center (Nah & Lee, 2015). In South Korea, a country known for its Confucian values, the very young children learned to express their points of view directly on issues that mattered to them and found support with this from their teachers.…”

Assessing the impacts of the Agenda Gap intervention for youth mental health promotion through policy engagement: A study protocol

“…In the Canadian context, this has involved the emergence of provincial initiatives for including youth in government consultation to inform decisions about employment and child welfare, amongst others [15][16][17] and the development of Canada's rst national Youth Policy [18,19]. However, while youth engagement has attracted attention across sectors and there is broad consensus that youth engagement in the design of health-related initiatives can yield positive results [20][21][22], there is a paucity of evidence-based strategies to support their meaningful inclusion in policy processes [10]. This is a critical oversight.…”