The Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is made up of eight bright and creative youth leaders from Running Rebels Community Organization in Lindsay Heights. Through a Community-Based Participatory Research partnership between Rebels and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), the YAC is helping to create, analyze and share the findings of a study exploring youths’ environmental health perspectives and priorities. Started in spring 2015 and ongoing through the summer of 2016, the YAC focuses on building youth research and problem-solving capacity through four core modules:

• Research Methods Development. The YAC helped to develop survey and focus group tools to explore Rebel youths’ environmental health knowledge and perspectives on strengths and challenges of their neighborhood environments.

• Community Site Visits. Over the summer, the YAC visited the Milwaukee Health Department, Walnut Way Conservation Corp., and Sixteenth Street Community Health Center to learn about and observe how different sectors and organizations in Milwaukee are using research to address local environmental health concerns.

• Research Application. The YAC completed a mini photovoice project (featured here on NNS) and will complete a GIS mapping activity to build research leadership skills and visually explore relationships between environmental health issues of concern to them.

• Research Analysis, Translation, and Dissemination. The study findings will be shared through a youth-driven arts-based presentation led by the YAC next summer.

The YAC would like to thank Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service for lending us their wonderful cameras and publishing their mini photovoice project, with a special shout out to Adam Carr for his beautiful compiling of the photo galleries. Stay tuned for news on the YAC’s final presentation, and watch for our monthly updates on the Running Rebels Facebook page!