Increasing the Capacity of Youth-Serving Professionals: Evaluation of the Online Social Justice Approach to Youth Engagement Course

There has been increased commitment to youth engagement in public health. However, those seeking to engage youth often lack the knowledge and skills to sustain meaningful youth engagement, constraining the potential positive impacts. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of training programs for practitioners who seek to increase their capacity to engage youth authentically. Given the need to train adults who work with youth, we developed and evaluated an online course to support public health and social service professionals in a social justice approach to youth engagement. During this 7-week course, grounded in social justice youth development theory, participants analyzed how power, privilege, and oppression operated in their own lives and engaged in conversations about disrupting systems of power that oppress young people. Fifty-eight participants completed the course as part of four cohorts, and 41 participants completed a survey (71% response rate) at all four time points (pre, post, 3-month, and 6-month follow-up). Paired t tests showed that participants experienced significant changes (p < .0001) in their confidence to implement practices and curricula associated with social justice youth development, critique and provide evidence-informed recommendations to their organizational setting, and describe and disrupt adultism—the systematic subordination of youth by adults. Effects were sustained 6 months post course. Qualitative responses to survey items further supported the positive benefit of the course on their professional youth work. This course provides a promising model for training public health and social service professionals on how to authentically work with youth through a social justice lens.