This training will cover all aspects of the meaningful youth engagement process, including practical tips such as ensuring group and individual participant safety, dealing with conflict, addressing basic needs of participants, fostering effective youth-adult partnerships, and supporting meaningful participation. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about and participate in some of McCreary’s dissemination activities that have been co-developed with youth, and to reflect on their own practice and readiness to meaningfully engage young people in their own work.
Facilitated by Evelyn McGowan & Katie Horton
Evelyn McGowan (she/her) is the Director of Community Engagement with McCreary Centre Society. She has extensive experience in youth and community engagement, and is passionate about empowering young people to have a voice in data, decisions, and systems which affect them. She has led and supported multiple projects aimed at improving supports for vulnerable youth, including youth in and from government care and youth with justice experience. She also supports the Youth Health Ambassador program, a group of youth across BC who are trained to facilitate conversations with their peers on a variety of youth health issues.
Katie has spent many years working alongside youth on both the east and west coasts of Canada. She has been with McCreary for over eight years and supports the various youth engagement projects that McCreary takes on. She has assisted in the development of project-specific focus groups and workshops, supported youth to create “by youth for youth” resources, and co-authored a peer reviewed publication about youth engagement. She coordinates and supports McCreary’s Youth Research Academy, the Youth Advisory and Action Council (YAC), the province-wide BC Youth Health and Wellness Advisory Council, and the Young Indigenous Research Team.
The video for this training is 58 minutes in length.