Want to be a Champion for Youth? Explore and Excavate Your Prejudices and Bias

By ashley hill

Youth with even one safe and responsive adult in their lives report significantly fewer mental health-related concerns. According to youth development experts, a single consistent relationship with a supportive adult is key to a youth’s ability to thrive.

For youth, thoughtful, affirming, and trustworthy adult supporters make a difference in how they think about and seek care for their mental health. These adult supporters, known as Youth Champions, have a direct, positive impact on youth mental wellbeing by inspiring participation at school, reducing engagement in high-risk behaviors, and increasing the likelihood youth will flourish in adulthood. As simplistic as it may be to be a “safe and responsive adult,” we “grownups” can make it very complicated in real life due to our own prejudices and biases.

This is clear among communities with historically and intentionally marginalized identities, including those who identify as LGBTQIA2S+. For these youth, prejudice and bias lead to disconnection, low levels of trust, and emotional insecurity with adults whose values and opinions invalidate their lived experience. Data shows that can lead to self-harm, including suicide. Further, youth holding multiple historically and purposely marginalized identities, such as Black trans girls, have some of the poorest mental health outcomes because of the layered systems of oppression they experience. Adults who are accepting and supportive greatly decrease LGBTQ suicide attempts.

Over the past two decades, Active Minds has worked in middle and high schools, universities, and communities with youth and young adults and their adult supporters to create peer-to-peer education and advocacy programs and resources to change the conversation about mental health. During this time, we have witnessed what discourages youth from viewing adults as Youth Champions.

Schools are uniquely positioned to facilitate relationships between youth and adults and can cultivate a supportive environment for all students. Teachers and administrators, youth development professionals, and families need learning opportunities to address their individual prejudice and bias to become Youth Champions who create safe and judgement-free spaces for conversations.

So, what actions can adults take?

Youth Champions can explore and excavate their prejudices and biases through three practices that guide Active Minds’ work:

1. Unconditional Positive Regard means that youth do not need to earn adult acceptance. It requires us, as adults, to hold space for who youth are at present, rather than for who we expect them to be. This concept was popularized by humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1950s and remains relevant as youth, no matter their age, background, or ability, deserve our time, investment, and attention.

2. Celebration of Youth Culture can be thought of as an antidote to adultism. Celebrating youth culture means finding value and delight in a younger generation's way of thinking and being. The celebration approach communicates genuine interest in youth trends; the social, political, and economic climate that impacts them; and a desire to understand their motivators. An adult who celebrates youth culture communicates the validity of youth’s interests and opinions and demonstrates that they are equal to those of adults.

3. Practicing Anti Racism addresses the historic injustices that have birthed modern systemic hierarchies of oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. For Youth Champions to truly create emotionally safe spaces and make room for youth of all identities, they must:

A. Acknowledge historical injustices from the vantage point of a myriad of oppressed identities,

B. Seek education and exposure about historically marginalized communities and the systems that negatively impact them, and

C. Use that knowledge to stop perpetuating harm in their classroom, home, and community.

The evidence is strong and resounding. Safe and responsive adults improve youth mental health. This is especially true for our LGBTQIA2S+ youth, for whom the presence of a Youth Champion can change their trajectory. Because of this, it is imperative that schools and communities provide space to allow adults to take the necessary steps of understanding, unpacking, and undoing their prejudice and biases to become the champions we know make a difference.

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Article Details

The Time to Act Is Now: Investing in LGBTQIA2S+ Student Mental Health in K-12 Schools With a Youth-Centered Approach
Lauren Cikara, MSEd, Amy Gatto, MPH, Ashley Hill, MA, Annie Hobson, MS
First Published January 19, 2023
DOI: 10.1177/15248399221150815
Health Promotion Practice

About the Author

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Ashley Hill (she/her) is a human development professional with national and international experience strengthening social and emotional competencies in adults, youth, and organizational processes. Her expertise lies in facilitating safe physical and emotional learning spaces by cultivating cultural and self-awareness that lead to the examination of biases. She is a joyful trainer of youth and adults in a range of subjects including sexual and behavioral health and organizational intelligence building. She is most proud of her work designing content that moves youth serving nonprofits forward for betterment of Black, brown, and LGBTQ youth by helping organizational leadership confront internalized white supremist ideology.