YOUTH CAN! IMPROVE THEIR COMMUNITIES

This study examined the impact of a program with positive youth development combined with nutrition education and youth advocacy, Youth Can! Improve their Communities (n=7). The curriculum for this program was created by combining three previously used curricula, Youth Can!, the Mikva Challenge, and Michigan Model for Health. The eight-week summer program intended to increase nutrition knowledge, community engagement, and self-efficacy, assessed via pre- and post-test surveys. The results indicated that Youth Can! Improve their Communities significantly increased nutrition knowledge (t = 3.422, df = 6, p = 0.014), but not community engagement activities, community engagement beliefs, nor self-efficacy. Since Youth Can! Improve their Communities was a pilot program, the findings will aid in the development of improved programming and evaluation for this population.