Grant: Fellowship: POR Awards - Transition to Leadership Stream - Phase 1

Community partners must collaborate to place a focus on prevention and promotion in order to achieve health and wellness for all. In Iceland, a collaborative prevention model that was designed to influence community, school, peer and family contexts has been effective in reducing youth substance use behaviours across the country. Although this approach considers a range of environmental and social influences, it has not yet involved youth in developing the approach nor examined whether they can contribute to enhance outcomes. In addition, they have not identified whether the approach is beneficial for youth mental health and wellbeing in general. This study was designed to examine whether the Icelandic substance use prevention model is effective in reducing substance use and promoting mental health and development for Canadian youth. It will also examine how to successfully involve youth to inform project development. In this approach, youth will be involved in program design, research question development and identifying how to share the findings. The study will also apply the ecological theory and several evaluation frameworks to better understand if the model is effective and how it might create positive change for youth.