Employing a Youth Internship Model to Identify Goals to Reduce Barriers to Active Living

Active lifestyles are vital for promoting health. In this practice note, we describe the implementation of an active living intervention designed to engage youth in identifying barriers to being physically active and developing recommendations to address these barriers. Youth interns were compensated for their time. Through this project, the community obtained street striping for the first time, secured a community center when the police substation building was turned over to the community, and had sidewalk funding prioritized for one of their busiest streets. Lessons learned while developing and implementing this youth internship program focused on making the internship program work well given youth schedules and focusing on supporting the voice of youth to advocate for changes to the built environment in an intentionally excluded community.