Youth Wellness Team Member Highlight and Q&A:
This month the Youth Wellness Team member highlight features Yasmeen (she/her). Yasmeen is a Senior at Walden III High School and plans to major in nueuroscience and public health in college. Career goals for Yasmeen inlcude becoming a scientist or researcher.
Q&A with Yasmeen:
What is one thing you’d like for our Local/Tribal Health Departments to know about working with young people?
It's a common misconception that young people aren't interested in advocacy or they aren't interested in putting forth effort to create change. I've seen a lot of young people working together to solve a bunch of these issues. Adults being open to youth input would be great.
What has the Youth Wellness Team been working on?
The biggest thing we have been working on is defining an issue. I'm glad we are taking a lot of time to define this and work on this because having a plan is really important instead of jumping straight into action. I'm glad we are taking time to consider different factors, the different counties we live in, and different sets of circumstances to define a problem and define what we want to do about it before we jump in and advocate for it.
What has been your favorite part of being on this team?
I really enjoy connecting and meeting all of the people on this team. It is really interesting and so nice to meet people from diverse backgrounds and from different counties all over the state. PACTH and UW-Extension in general, they do a really good job of branching out and connecting different people to work on a similar issue.
What are you personally interested in studying?
I want to study neuroscience and public health when I get into college next year. I'm interested in the brain and how it works in relation to social connectedness and adolescent behavior.
