Healthcare Organizations Need to Include Young People’s Voices, Says BUSSW Doctoral Student Melanie Morris
In a blog post published by Boston University’s Institute for Health System Innovation & Policy (IHSIP), doctoral student Melanie Morris of BU School of Social Work explains why elevating youth voices in health care settings is essential – not only for young people, but for the health care organizations and professionals that support them.
As a 2021 IHSIP Student Summer Research Award recipient, Morris joined a multidisciplinary research team from Boston University School of Social Work and Boston Medical Center (BMC) that piloted a youth advisory board (YAB) program. The program was designed to glean insights on participatory research strategies that involve young people in conversations about health care delivery and policy.
In her blog post, Morris explains that “YABs are a way to integrate youth perspectives and experiences, and are becoming more popular in research, practice, and policy … However, there are currently few frameworks to guide researchers in the development and maintenance of successful YABs in healthcare settings.” Furthermore, Morris says, “None of these frameworks specifically focus on building and sustaining YABs of BIPOC youth in healthcare settings.” Her team’s research sought to further both bodies of knowledge in their YAB pilot program.
Their findings, which are based on interviews with the YAB participants and healthcare professionals, highlight the necessity for meaningful integration of YABs within organizational structures, and raise potential challenges like establishing trust between young people and health professionals. This data will help pave the way for future efforts to engage youth in health care-related discussions.
“Youth are spoken about as the future of communities,” Morris writes in her blog post. “However, they tend to be excluded as equal partners and decision-makers.” Her conclusion: “Young people are our future [and] we must involve them in planning it.”
The research team was led by professors Astraea Augsberger (BUSSW), Morris’s faculty advisor for her IHSIP research award; Linda Sprague Martinez (BUSSW); and Katherine Gergen Barnett (BU School of Medicine). BUSSW doctoral student Noor Toraif and MSW alum Adrienne Young (SSW’21) co-facilitated the BMC Youth Advisory Board.
Melanie Morris is a second-year doctoral student in BUSSW’s PhD in Social Work program. Her research focuses on oral health care inequities, particularly those at the intersection of socioeconomic, race, and language justice factors. Her work also explores broader integration of social work into dental and oral health care settings.
Read Morris’s IHSIP blog post here.