Promoting health through collaborative engagement with youth: Overcoming, resisting, and preventing structural violence

Canas, Eugenia

Saturday, March 21, 2015: 9:50 AM-11:10 AM

Room 5 (Renaissance Washington, DC Downtown Hotel)

Speakers:
Eugenia Canas, M.A., PhD, Student, Western University
Rita I. Henderson, Ph.D., University of Calgary

Author:
Helene Berman, RN, PhD, Western University

Presentation Format:
Innovative/Promising Practice Program Report

Learning Objectives:

Understand how structural violence shapes the lives of youth.
Identify strategies that can be used by youth to overcome and resist structural violence.
Understand how collaborative and arts-based approaches with youth can be used to bring about social and political action and change.

Description:
During the past two decades, researchers have made significant strides in understanding young people’s experiences of, and responses to, violence. Less well-understood are the complex dimensions of structural violence. The purposes of our research were: to examine how structural violence shapes the everyday lives of young people in Canada, how it influences their health, and strategies they can use to overcome and resist violence; and to evaluate how collaborative engagement with youth can be conceptualized as a health promotion strategy.