Chad Trivette

Young people are not waiting to care about their communities. They already care. They see the stress their classmates carry. They see who sits alone at lunch. They know when vaping is becoming normal, when bullying is hidden, when mental health resources feel hard to reach, and when adults are missing part of the story. The question is not whether young people have insight. The question is whether we are willing to give that insight a real place in local decision making.

A Youth Public Health Committee could turn student concern into local policy change, especially in schools. Too often, students are affected by policies they had no role in shaping. They live with the consequences of cell phone rules, bathroom policies, lunch schedules, mental health supports, discipline practices, anti bullying programs, vaping prevention efforts, school safety decisions, attendance policies, and wellness programs. If young people are closest to many of these challenges, then they should not only be asked to follow the rules. They should be invited to help make the rules wiser, fairer, and more effective.

This does not mean students should replace parents, teachers, administrators, school boards, or health professionals. It means their lived experience should inform the decisions adults are already responsible for making. Young people can explain what is actually happening inside schools. They can identify which rules are working, which rules are ignored, which supports feel safe to use, and which policies unintentionally create barriers. When adults listen carefully, students can help local leaders design policies that are more realistic, more trusted, and more effective.

For example, if a school district is trying to reduce vaping, students can help explain why certain prevention messages fail. They may know that scare based posters do not work, that students need better bathroom supervision without feeling criminalized, or that peer led education would be more credible. If a school is trying to improve mental health support, students can help identify whether classmates know how to ask for help, whether counseling offices feel welcoming, whether stigma is stopping students from speaking up, and whether crisis information is easy to find.

Young people could also help schools review wellness policies. Many districts have policies on nutrition, physical activity, health education, mental health, substance use prevention, bullying prevention, and school climate. But a policy on paper is not the same as a policy students experience. A Youth Public Health Committee could help school leaders ask better questions. Are students getting enough movement during the day? Are healthy food options realistic and appealing? Are students overwhelmed by stress during certain times of year? Are anti bullying messages reaching students who need them most? Are students with disabilities, English learners, students in poverty, rural students, and students from different backgrounds included in wellness planning?

This could also help school boards. School boards often hear from adults, but they do not always hear directly from students in a structured way. A Youth Public Health Committee could prepare short reports, student surveys, project updates, and recommendations for school board meetings. Students could speak respectfully about what they are seeing and what they believe could help. That kind of participation teaches civic responsibility while giving elected leaders better information.

Health departments could benefit from this too. Many local health priorities connect directly to school policy. Mental health, substance use prevention, nutrition, physical activity, infectious disease prevention, emergency preparedness, and violence prevention all touch schools. When students help identify local barriers and propose solutions, health departments gain insight that can inform Community Health Assessments, Community Health Improvement Plans, grant applications, and prevention strategies.

Students could help recommend small policy changes that do not require large budgets. They might suggest adding mental health resource cards to student IDs, creating a confidential way to request help, improving how crisis numbers are posted, including youth representatives on wellness committees, adding peer education campaigns, strengthening substance free event options, improving access to water during the school day, creating quiet spaces during high stress periods, or making health resources easier to find on school websites.

They could also help with larger policy conversations over time. Students could help school districts think about later start times, safe routes to school, school meal participation, bathroom safety, discipline alternatives, restorative practices, suicide prevention protocols, emergency response planning, health career pathways, and partnerships with local clinics or mental health providers. Their role would not be to make final decisions alone. Their role would be to make the decisions better informed.

This is especially important because policy feels more legitimate when people affected by it have a voice in shaping it. Young people are more likely to trust prevention efforts when they can see that students helped design them. They are more likely to use resources when those resources are visible, youth friendly, and not embarrassing. They are more likely to respect rules when they understand the reason behind them and when those rules are applied fairly.

A Youth Public Health Committee could become a training ground for future civic leaders. Students would learn how to gather input, review data, listen to peers, write recommendations, speak at meetings, work with adults, and turn concern into constructive proposals. They would learn that public policy is not only something that happens in Washington or a state capital. It happens in school board meetings, health department offices, city councils, county commissions, parent advisory groups, and local committees.

This would be powerful in rural and urban communities alike. In rural areas, students may be able to identify transportation barriers, limited after school options, stigma around counseling, and the lack of nearby services. Their recommendations could help schools and health departments design realistic local solutions. In urban areas, students may be able to identify neighborhood safety concerns, service fragmentation, overcrowding, food access issues, and unequal access to wellness resources. Their voice could help leaders target policy changes where they are needed most.

The deeper message is that young people should not only be asked to follow rules. They should be invited to help improve the systems around them. When students are treated as partners, they begin to see themselves as problem solvers. They learn that their voice can help prevent harm, improve health, and strengthen their community. That is how public health becomes civic leadership. That is how a committee becomes more than a program. It becomes a pathway for young people to help change the policies that shape their daily lives.