The YAB will provide a vehicle for young people in Polk County to become involved in governmental public health services, merging civic engagement and leadership development for high school students. By engaging youth in our agency’s policies, practices and procedures, we bring new energy, information and knowledge into our mission-based work through youth targeted, age and gender sensitive interventions. As part of developing future leaders of our communities, youth will plan, implement and reflect on limited yet meaningful programming determined by the YAB.
We aim to have a community that flourishes by practicing positive emotion, engagement, and positive relationships by promoting evidence-based mental health resiliency tools such as Random Acts of Kindness, Gratitude, 3 Good Things, Taking it Outside, Thank you Letters and Social Connectedness. These tools are a key component for individuals when working to create reserves of wellbeing that can be pulled when needed.