Partnering With Youth to Enhance Healthcare Access and Experience: Lessons Learned From a Teen Advisory Group

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Youth are experts of their experiences and well‐positioned to be effective partners in innovation. A common method to engage youth in innovation is through an advisory board. This paper focuses on the development and implementation of a nation‐wide teen advisory group (TAG) as part of the Comprehensive Healthcare for Adolescents Initiative (CHAI) Project at Texas A&M University. The CHAI project aimed to develop innovative programs that increase youth access to, and enhance experiences with, healthcare services. A TAG was developed at the project's onset to ensure youth voice and experiences drove the program development process. This paper describes methods used to recruit and convene CHAI TAG members, results and outcomes of their efforts throughout the program development process, and conclusions and lessons learned for practitioners and youth engagement researchers.

Methods

Project staff from Texas A&M University recruited youth from across the nation through electronic mediums in Fall 2020. Engagement comprised meeting attendance and take‐home activities. All meetings and activities were optional based on the youth's availability.

Results

Throughout the project, CHAI hosted 31 virtual meetings and offered nearly 20 unique activity opportunities for TAG members. Their insights and ideas drove the direction of the program development process, informing program design and content.

Conclusion

The TAG's insights and feedback were instrumental in developing programs related to youth‐friendly spaces, confidentiality, assessing for unmet needs and healthcare navigation. The program's success in engaging youth provides a model for other youth engagement efforts.

Patient or Public Contribution

This paper focuses on how a group of young people from across the country served as members of a teen advisory group (TAG) to develop innovative programs for healthcare settings. Said TAG members provided invaluable insight that informed and drove a cyclical program development process. The TAG members began by sharing their experiences with healthcare services and providers, then they envisioned ideal healthcare encounters. Such experiences, along with the youths' continuous feedback, led to the development and fine‐tuning of three program ideas focused on organizational change to improve adolescent healthcare.