Youth Engage and Initiate Policy Change

Twelve local teens from Willits and Ukiah volunteer for the BEANS program (Better Eating, Activity, and Nutrition for Students). They have been busy presenting interactive nutrition and cooking lessons to elementary and middle school students in their after-school programs since the fall of 2010. As the teen peer educators continue their weekly lessons to area students this spring, they have also begun to spend a couple hours a week doing research about access to healthy foods and opportunities for physically active play in our schools and in our towns.

The teens are approaching their research through a process called PhotoVoice. This process involves developing research questions, focusing the research on a manageable topic, teens using a camera to capture their perspectives about food and play access, a peer review of all photos, narrowing the photo selection down, then writing a reflection for each of their chosen photos. The process culminates in a presentation of the photos and essays. The BEANS teens want to make a difference; they want to use this project to initiate some policy change in our local communities.

Teens would like to make presentations of their PhotoVoice projects to their school boards, to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, to City Councils, and also to display their work at the Mendocino County Museum and/or the Mendocino County Library. If you have connections or ideas that will facilitate any of these presentations, please email Tarney Sheldon, BEANS coordinator, at sheldont@ncoinc.org .