Introduction As the global climate changes, heat waves are having a disproportionate impact on seniors and other socially vulnerable groups. In order to mitigate the threats of extreme heat, it is critical to develop and promote resources for coping during these events. A better understanding of the role of risk perceptions and the factors that influence them is needed in order to improve public responses to threatening events, particularly among seniors. Methods This mixed-methods study examined risk perceptions and coping practices in seniors using qualitative interviews (n = 15) and a survey (n = 244) of seniors across Waterloo Region, Ontario. Results Seniors showed relatively accurate risk tracking as indicated by the link between measures of actual risk and perception of personal risk. While vulnerability to heat is often believed to be associated with inaccurate perceptions of risk, within our sample, vulnerability appears more strongly related to social location and access to resources. Participants described social connections as important resources for resilience, but the stigma surrounding vulnerability, and other social norms, as barriers to seeking support. Conclusion The positive relationship between participants’ risk perceptions and actual risk for negative consequences of extreme heat was an important finding, given that problems of emergency preparedness and risk reduction are often framed as issues of awareness of risk, rather than social location and inequality. Along with increased public resources for coping with extreme heat, communicating about resources, fostering social connections and reducing stigma may be important leverage points for increasing the resiliency of seniors to heat waves.

Significant cultural transformations of the kinds that are needed to move our global society toward sustainability require youth to engage in environmental actions. These actions are more than just updating one's personal practice (e.g., recycling). They are “intentional and conscious civic behaviors that are focused on systemic causes of environmental problems and the promotion of environmental sustainability through collective efforts” (Alisat & Riemer, 2015, p. 14). The current study investigated the effectiveness of the Youth Leading Environmental Change (YLEC) program, which fostered such environmental actions in six participating countries. YLEC is an 11-unit evidence-based youth engagement workshop series, with a focus on environmental justice and on building action competence. The study employed a mixed-method longitudinal comparison group design with three follow-ups at 3, 6, and 12 months. Overall, 365 university students from Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, India, Uganda, and the United States participated in either the workshop or comparison group. Sixty-three of the workshop participants participated in semistructured qualitative interviews at the 3-month follow-up. The results suggest that most participants experienced a significant personal transformation both in regard to how they relate to environmental issues and how they perceive themselves as agents of change. Although there was an increase in environmental action in the month immediately following the workshop series, engagement seemed to revert close to baseline levels at the 12-month follow-up for many participants. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed. Key Words: Youth—Environmental action—Environmentalism—Youth engagement—Environmental activism.

Youth and young adults play an important role in creating a much-needed major cultural shift toward sustainability and environmental justice. Such social change is significantly advanced when youth engage in collective environmental actions that go beyond greening their own personal practice. Although significant progress has been made in recent years in our understanding of how to engage youth in environmental action, what is currently lacking is a clear theory of engagement that unifies this knowledge in one comprehensive and easily accessible framework that is applicable in different cultural contexts. In this article, the authors describe a theory of engagement that was developed, applied, and tested in six countries in the context of the Youth Leading Environmental Change (YLEC) project. The authors describe the development process of the theory of engagement before discussing its core components, which include several facilitating factors of engagement and four active ingredients. A rationale for each component is provided as well. Then the authors illustrate how the theory can be operationalized using the YLEC project as an example. Key Words: Youth—Youth engagement—Theory of engagement—Environmental action—Environmental justice.

Psychological approaches to fostering sustainability are heavily focused on individual behaviors and often insufficiently address the physical and social contexts individuals are embedded in. This limits the ability to create meaningful, long-lasting change, as many of day-to-day behaviors are social practices embedded in broader cultural norms and systems. This is particularly true in the work context, where organizational cultures heavily condition both the actions of individual employees and the collective actions of organizations. Thus, we argue cultures, not behaviors, must become the focus of sustainability change efforts. In this paper, we present a theory of change aimed at fostering strong organizational cultures of sustainability (COS) within a high-performance multi-tenant office building. Our theory takes a systems perspective that incorporates the social and physical aspects of the work environment, and views culture change as a co-creative exercise involving engagement of multiple stakeholders. The paper concludes with implications for practice and research.

The present article describes and evaluates the Youth Counseling Impact Scale (YCIS; L. Bickman et al., 2007), a recently developed therapeutic process measure that assesses youths' perceptions of the impact individual mental health counseling sessions have on their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This measure is intended for frequent use in the mental health treatment of youths aged 11-18. It provides a general Impact score as well as two subscale scores: Insight and Change. Five hundred youths receiving mental health services participated in this investigation. Classical test theory, item response theory, confirmatory factor nalysis, and analyses of the relationship of the YCIS with other scales were used to evaluate the research questions. The results suggest that, overall, the YCIS is a well-functioning scale with good psychometric properties. The proposed model for 1 primary general factor of impact and 2 secondary factors (Insight and Change) fit the data well. Specific weaknesses of the scale are discussed, and possible improvements are suggested.