Young people need opportunities that support their well-being while enabling them to take meaningful action. There has been strong interest in youth participatory action research (YPAR) as a form of sociopolitical action for marginalized youth seeking to address inequities that undermine individual and community well-being. The rapid growth of the YPAR literature in the last decade has involved studies analyzing the impact of YPAR on dimensions of youth empowerment, sociopolitical development (SPD), and well-being. The relatively new framework of Transformative Social Emotional Learning (tSEL) is potentially fruitful in identifying relevant constructs, skills, and strategies to support well-being during the YPAR process. This article seeks to advance our integrative conceptualization and analysis of the impact of YPAR by (1) considering the overlapping and unique dimensions of SPD and tSEL: agency, belonging, collaborative problem solving, curiosity, identity, societal involvement, and worldview and social analysis; and (2) applying this integrative lens to the analysis of novel data from an updated systematic review of U.S. and international YPAR studies (2015–2022). We summarize youth outcomes reported in 25 studies to assess the evidence for YPAR as an approach for promoting youth SPD and tSEL outcomes, identifying limitations and next steps for advancing our understanding of these impacts.

Objective: A population-level, randomized controlled trial was conducted to test the effectiveness of a parent recruitment package for increasing initial engagement into a school-based parenting program and to identify strategies responsible for effects. Method: Participants were caregivers of kindergarten- to third-grade students (N = 1,276) attending one of five schools serving ethnically diverse families living in mostly low-income, urban conditions. First, families were randomly assigned to be recruited for research surveys or not, and then to a parenting program recruitment condition: 1) Engagement-as-usual (EAU) informational flyer; 2) EAU + testimonial booklet; 3) EAU + teacher endorsement; 4) EAU + recruitment call; or 5) all strategies (full package). Caregivers were offered a free parenting program at their child’s school. Primary dependent variables were parenting program enrollment and attending at least one session (initiation). Exploratory analyses were conducted on program completion, attendance across sessions, homework completion, and in-session participation. Results: In the population-level sample, enrollment and initiation were higher for the full package compared to all other conditions except the recruitment call condition. Enrollment, initiation, and program completion were higher for the recruitment call and full package conditions compared to the EAU condition. In the subsample of initiators, parents in the full package condition attended fewer parenting sessions than in the EAU condition. Controlling for attendance across sessions, there were no condition effects on homework completion or in-session participation. Conclusions: The recruitment call can increase the public health impact of evidence-based parenting programs by improving enrollment, initiation, and program completion.

The current study piloted a virtual 8-week National Young Adult Well-being Network (The Network) to inform funding and policy decisions around post-COVID-19 pandemic healing. Arts-based youth participatory action research (YPAR) was utilized. Essential elements were creation of art as data, group processing, and action planning. Fifteen 18 to 23-year-old young people (4 male, 11 female) living in three states participated in The Network. The young people identified as Black ( n = 3), White ( n = 5), Latino/a/x ( n = 6), and Native Mexican ( n = 1). The Network was virtual via Zoom. Attendance was documented and post-intervention individual interviews were conducted. Qualitative thematic analysis of the post-intervention individual interviews assessed feasibility via participant satisfaction (strengths, areas for improvement). Two of The Network’s essential elements (art as data, group processing) were deemed feasible based on participant reported satisfaction and strengths. The action phase was truncated and was discussed by participants as an area for improvement. Participating in art and group processing in The Network was more feasible than meeting with national stakeholders. More work needs to be done to understand how young people can be involved with decisions at the national and funding levels.

The current study explored youth participatory action research (YPAR) as a multi-level intervention to promote young adults' wellbeing within a virtual National Young Adult Wellbeing Network. The research questions were: 1) how did young adults conceptualize wellbeing?; 2) how did young adults describe the impact of YPAR on their wellbeing? Fifteen racially and economically diverse 18-23 year olds from three states participated. Phase one included creating art as data (research), critical reflection, and action planning in YPAR. Phase two involved a qualitative follow up to create a collective definition of wellbeing. Field notes, arti(facts), and post-interviews were coded and reflexive thematic analysis was used to answer the research questions. Young adults' conceptualization of wellbeing centered the impact of structural forces on individual and group functioning. YPAR facilitated the young adults' wellbeing across five domains. Combining positive psychology and community psychology in YPAR can improve individual and collective wellbeing.

There is growing recognition across disciplines that partnering with people with lived experience (PWLE) in research about conditions that affect their lives can strengthen research quality and impact. Participatory approaches (community-based participatory research, participatory action research) emphasize partnering with PWLE of inequities across all research stages with the aim of producing actionable recommendations towards social transformation of oppressive structures. There is, however, little research examining how lived experience shapes the qualitative analysis process when the researcher has lived experience of the inequity under study. Qualitative research has focused mostly on the benefits and challenges of being an insider in research, especially as it relates to the data collection process. To expand the participatory knowledge base on lived experience and its impact on qualitative data analysis, this study was guided by the research question: How do college student research teams with and without lived experience of parental incarceration differ and converge in their qualitative analysis and interpretation of the support needs of college students who experienced parental incarceration? Using a comparative case study design, we compared how college student research teams with and without lived experience of parental incarceration approached, analyzed, and interpreted data about the support needs of incarcerated parents from five focus groups (N=24) conducted with college students with lived experience of parental incarceration. The two research teams independently conducted thematic analysis of the same focus group data. Similarities and differences in codebook generation, analytic decision-making, and qualitative themes emerged. The PWLE team’s themes were actionable and systems focused, and highlighted the heterogeneity in young people’s experiences with parental incarceration. These findings have implications for health justice by demonstrating how involving PWLE in qualitative analysis can produce themes with direct implications for actions that can promote health equity.