Grant: Catalyst Grant: Healthy Youth - Environment and Climate Action

Climate change is a public health emergency, with studies showing an association between climate change, climate anxiety, and other mental health (MH) problems. Youth (12-25 years), compared to adults, are particularly vulnerable to climate-related anxiety and MH concerns. A majority of youth believe the Canadian government is not doing enough to avert climate crises. Building and fostering hope is a key strategy to improving MH. The current study will investigate how youth think about and take action on climate change as it relates to their MH, wellbeing, and building and fostering active hope across Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario (YWHO). This mixed methods study will facilitate youth's engagement to explore how youth think about and take action on climate change, and what intervention supports they need for climate action to support their MH, wellbeing, and hope. To understand eco-anxiety levels among youth accessing IYS, we will administer a scale on eco-anxiety within YWHO's common data platform. We will implement this scale over three months across all YWHO hubs and conduct a cross-sectional analysis of the data. We will establish an IYS Youth Climate Action Advisory Group to contribute their concerns, experiences, reflections on climate change, how they take action on climate change and build active hope. We will use Photovoice methods to document youth experiences of climate change, MH, and active hope through photos and storytelling. Key themes and subthemes on their experiences, actions, and hope will be analyzed. Triangulating data from the above methods, youth will develop a climate action and active hope literacy module for IYS to educate youth, YWHO service providers, and other health serving organizations about the importance of climate change on youth MH and active hope. It will also be used as a starting point to develop a future climate change pathway to care within IYS.