What does meaningful youth engagement really look like—and how do you move from asking for input to sharing power?

In this interactive session, Child Trends staff will introduce a continuum of youth engagement, providing practical strategies for partnering with young people in research, evaluation, program design, and decision-making.

We’ll share lessons from the field, including co-created resources with youth who have lived experience, youth-led grantmaking processes, and the use of community-engaged approaches like Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR).

Whether you’re just getting started or working to deepen existing efforts, join us to learn more, reflect on where your work sits on the youth engagement continuum, and leave with tools to move toward more authentic, meaningful youth partnership.

How can we meet the health and wellness needs of young people?

Working directly with them removes the guesswork in improving clinics and enhancing care. This session highlights the collaboration between Baltimore City Health Department’s Adolescent and Reproductive Health team, Morgan State University, Healthy Teen Network, and youth to co-create programs that reflect their experiences and ideas. Through initiatives like Community Asset Mapping (CAM) events, over 230 surveys, “mystery shopper” activities, and focus groups, young people have played a key role in identifying gaps in reproductive and social services across Charm City.

We’ll also dive into their peer-to-peer sexual health influencer program, where youth created social media campaigns to destigmatize sexual health conversations and inform peers about available clinic services. Through videos, real-life examples, and group discussions, attendees will leave with actionable strategies for building genuine, creative partnerships with young people so you, too, can kickstart this approach in your clinics!

This workshop explores the vital role of public health data in shaping health policies and outcomes, and the growing challenges surrounding its accessibility. Participants will explore key public health data sources, including birth and pregnancy statistics, STI trends, and Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) data, with a focus on state comparisons and trends over time.

We’ll discuss the impact of critical public health data removal on adolescent sexual health and explore alternative data sources, strategies for leveraging private funding, and ways to ensure continued data collection efforts. Participants will share and refine their own ideas, ending with a call to action that encourages participants to contact their elected officials and advocate for increased attention on protecting and sustaining public health data.

What does it look like when communities reclaim their power and lead their own change?

In this session, we’ll explore how grassroots efforts such as Community Action Teams (CATs) and Community Conversations can spark authentic engagement, challenge systemic inequities, and fuel long-term transformation, especially in rural communities.

Participants will learn how to build and sustain CATs that uplift local leadership, center lived experiences, and turn conversations into concrete action. Through real-life examples and interactive dialogue, we’ll discuss how these strategies move communities from being heard to being heeded reframing residents not as recipients of change, but as the authors of their own liberation.

Whether you’re new to organizing or looking to deepen your impact, this session will leave you with practical tools and inspiration to strengthen community voice, build collective power, and co-create a more just future together.

This workshop is designed to support youth-facing professionals in making decisions and considerations around the use of emergent digital platforms in an educational setting. Participants can expect to engage in a values assessment around tech use and to walk away with an evaluation tool and a tangible framework to help evaluate tech for future use.

We can’t talk about consent without talking about rejection. We all will face rejection at some point (or many points) in our lives.

In this workshop, New York City Teens Connection (NYCTC), a program of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, will explore the role rejection plays in consent and relationships. Using the “Ask Before You Act: Youth Engagement Guide on Sexual Consent Communication,” this youth-led session will discuss current events involving rejection to highlight the necessity for more education on this topic.

We will examine healthy and unhealthy practices in delivering and receiving rejection. Lastly, participants will engage in interactive and youth-created activities from the guide, walking away with new tools for navigating consent and rejection with their young people. Participants will also receive a copy of the “Ask Before You Act” guide at the end of this session.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) frequently present as legitimate healthcare providers while delivering misleading, incomplete, and biased information. This session will equip educators and youth-serving professionals with the knowledge and tools to help young people recognize CPC tactics and access comprehensive, evidence-based reproductive health services.

Led by Val Cumming, Certified Sexual Health Educator, this interactive session includes real-world scenarios, discussion, and take-home strategies participants can apply immediately in their work. Attendees will leave with practical language, resource referral tools, and increased confidence in supporting youth through moments of confusion or misinformation. This is a must-attend for anyone committed to equity, access, and informed decision-making in sexual health education.

Medical mistrust is a significant issue among LGBTQ+ young people, impacting their healthcare experiences and outcomes. When young people lack trust in their providers or the healthcare system, they are more likely to avoid preventive care, delay treatment, and struggle to follow care plans. Though medical mistrust impacts healthcare interactions, its causes go well beyond any individual provider’s actions.

This session explores the history of anti-LGBTQ+ healthcare discrimination in the U.S., providing context for today’s medical mistrust. Through historical examples and research-backed connections, participants will deepen their understanding of how history shapes healthcare experiences and outcomes for LGBTQ+ young people today.

We’ll share actionable strategies for how to address historical medical discrimination, which participants will apply in group discussions of practice scenarios and individual reflections. By learning to apply these strategies in their practice, healthcare professionals can better address barriers to care, acknowledge collective harm, and implement inclusive, patient-centered practices.

Reproductive rights are central to and integrally linked with HIV advocacy. All individuals have the right to make informed, autonomous decisions about their reproductive health. For people with STIs, these decisions can be more complex, involving medical decisions that can drastically reduce the risk of transmission, and inherently, criminalization.

Now, as public health and sexual health become increasingly politicized, we must examine this topic further. Criminalization laws have yet to change alongside biomedical advancements, increasing stigma—disproportionately impacting those who are already disparately affected—and discouraging testing.

During this presentation, participants will learn about the unique relationship between reproductive health education, policy, and criminalization, from the standpoint that that people with STIs deserve to live free from oppression, to have medical privacy, to have bodily autonomy, to know their rights, to have access to quality care and treatment, to access medically accurate, evidence-based, sexual health education.

At a time when change feels constant and overwhelming, we must remember the power of young people to drive real and meaningful change. This session will challenge participants to reimagine the traditional approach to working with youth to improve adolescent and reproductive health (ASRH).

Presenters will share key insights from the Coogs Rise Up for Sexual Health (CRUSH) project at the University of Houston, a federally funded project designed to improve sexual and reproductive health among college students. Students have been key to the success of this project and are crucial to sustaining important ASRH work in the current reality of evolving restrictions on professional practice.

During this session, participants will learn how students can successfully cultivate a sense of project ownership and identity, drive marketing and communication efforts, and lead educational programming and outreach activities.

This presentation explores the results of a project focused on youth reproductive health choices. We will review the youth advisory board, which co-designed interview tools, recruitment strategies, and screening protocols, as well as the use of a storytelling tool to collect qualitative data.

This storytelling tool, Biograffs, resulted in exceptionally rich data and visuals created by the youth to accompany their responses. Focus areas for the data reviewed in this session will be Birth Control, Condoms, Sexual Experiences, Sexual Education, Differentiation of Self Among Peers, and Influences. Participants will also leave with actionable applications for utilizing this data and incorporating the research process into their own programs.

This session delves into the journey of one district that has strengthened its commitment through an expanded and actionable policy. Presenters will explore tangible examples of this policy in action, including an innovative breastfeeding support model developed through a cross-sector partnership and an integrated incentive structure designed to increase program and school retention.

You will engage in a dynamic, small-group innovation challenge to collaboratively brainstorm and develop groundbreaking solutions for your own school or district and leave with practical strategies for translating policy and data into real-world impact, along with tips to effectively communicate your successes!

This interactive session explores the power of gender-transformative programming in sexuality education, centering its ability to catalyze healthier behaviors, safer sex practices, and relationships rooted in empathy and equity.

Drawing from Many Ways of Being, a curriculum co-developed by Healthy Teen Network and Equimundo, we will model key activities that help youth unpack restrictive gender norms while uplifting positive and inclusive expressions of identity and masculinity.

Using a strengths-based approach, this session will spotlight how promoting equitable, caring, and connected forms of manhood—especially for boys and young men—can shift peer norms and foster environments where all youth thrive.

Participants will identify dominant gender norms affecting youth today and explore how to embed a gender-transformative lens into their own programming. We will share implementation experiences and early results from the field—including youth perceptions—and discuss practical strategies for balancing inclusivity while acknowledging how structural gender binaries limit expression.

In the wake of the Great Unraveling in the not-so-distant future, a brave few set out to construct a utopian refuge high in the treetops. Born was Thrivopolis, a verdant, gleaming city in the lush embrace of the trees—a true testament to the enduring spirit of humanity.

In this workshop, you’ll experience Thrivopolis, a game and discussion designed to spark connections and inspire collaboration among a broad array of youth-supporting professionals.

Your mission is to navigate a social safety net suspended in the canopy and reflect on the labyrinth of programs and services confronting young people and the professionals who support them.

As you play, you’ll chat with game creators and learn how to produce and play Thrivopolis in your community to foster collaboration across systems—crafting a future where young people thrive.

Tips for teaching healthy relationships and reproductive health to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Many students in Special Education have not had the opportunity to learn about reproductive health during their previous educational experiences, and all young adults could benefit from more support in developing healthy relationships.

Learn strategies for teaching this critical information in a safe space and empowering individuals with IDD to make the best decisions for themselves. The content shared during this presentation would also apply to secondary-level learners.

Hózhǫ is the Navajo word representing well-being, harmony, and balance. In Diné (Navajo) culture, Hózhǫ is a central principle that emphasizes overall physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional wellness—not merely the absence of disease.

To move toward this goal, the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health created Hózhǫ Horizons: Empowering Native Youth in Health and Wellness, a multi-pronged approach to engage Indigenous youth and families in the rural Southwest.

As part of the project, trained facilitators deliver a 6-hour family connection workshop to groups of youth and their parent or supportive adult. Activities and tools shared during the workshop help participants share their values, build the family bond, and talk about the tough stuff, including sexual health and healthy relationships.

In our small, rural, Indigenous community, this workshop has been a culturally specific response to increasing STI and birth rates, family disconnection, and adolescent substance use.

As young people grow and evolve, they begin to figure out who they are and question how others see them, accept them, and respect them. Feeling a sense of belonging might be challenging when young people have limited access to safe spaces where they are valued for who they genuinely are. Trying new identities, experimenting with different appearances, and exploring their interests are all natural parts of adolescent development. It’s crucial for young people to be fully accepted and supported in environments that reduce their experiences of rejection, isolation, and marginalization.

This workshop will look at three gender-responsive circle models: The Girls Circle™, The Council for Boys and Young Men™, and Unity Circle™, with interventions designed using evidence-based principles and practices, incorporating motivational interviewing, cultural responsivity, strengths-based approaches, and trauma-informed practices.

Join us for an engaging workshop filled with research, group discussions, and experiential, hands-on learning activities.