YOUTH VOICE (guide) 10

Aim: to identify the issues and themes of importance to young people.

Once youth have begun to articulate themselves, the next step is to look at what they are saying, to Identify the issues and main themes represented.

Issue identification works best as a group reflection and discussion on the work that was done during the Engage phase. The focus is on having the youth describe what they see represented in the media/work, and how it relates to the bigger picture of their lives.

One good guideline for how to enter into this type of discussion is by using the SHOWeD acronym (Wallerstein, 1992).

SHOWeD is a useful tool as it helps the group enter into critical thinking about the root causes of the issues or problems that they see represented. It is also important to recognize what the community does well and what they like about their community.

The idea is to get youth to move from looking at the world around them to taking action on issues they identify. This movement can take time. Initially youth may focus on what they have heard from other people or the media. They will likely focus on lifestyle factors, such as individual choice. However, over time youth will move towards looking at the root causes of the problems, which will help them, start to think about concepts such as social influence and social justice.

tip: Issue Exploration may take several weeks, or one session. It is up to the groupand largely driven by which method they choose.

IDIDENTIFYENTIFY

“I really liked it when we took the pictures and put in our own words beside the pictures and went through them all and got to discuss them. It really opened up big discussions. It kind of made us all realize that everyone had their own opinions, but yet, we were still all on the same track…”

Youth Voices participant

S What do you see here?H What is really happening here?O How does this relate to our lives?W Why does this problem or strength exist? eD What can we do about it?

11 YOUTH VOICES (guide)

Checklist of things to accomplish during the Identify Phase:

Discuss the work done during the Engage phase and pull out the issues and main themes represented Use directed discussion questions to get at root causes of the problems or issues identified Create an overall list of the issues and main themes that have been identified

Identify Appendix:

Issue Identification ActivitiesPhotovoice Project Description

The key is to focus on: What is behind the issue, such as causes or interrelated issues

How it relates to youth’s lives

What can be done about it

Smoke Free World Project

The SHOWeD questions, or similar directed questions, can be used to discuss various visual representations of community concerns and accomplishments such as photography, video, brain-storming, drama, or art.

For Identify activity ideas refer to IDENTIFY Appendix. This includes Photovoice project description.

“it just opened it up into bigger discus-sions about where the problem actually came… that made me really connect with the majority of them (group members) because it kind of gave me an understand-ing where they were coming from”. –

Youth Voices participant

p. 29

p. 31