The New Mentality Model centers authentic youth engagement through consultation, co-creation, and shared lived experience. This presentation will explore how the CMHO’s Provincial Youth Action Committee (YAC) and organizational partnerships integrate youth voice across all levels of decision-making, from program development to executive leadership. The session will highlight the importance of representation, allyship, and training in fostering inclusive environments where youth perspectives shape real outcomes. It will also address how organizational structures and barriers can negatively impact engagement, perpetuate inequities,  and limit opportunities for youth. By examining the TNM Model, organizations will gain strategies to embed youth voice within governance and practice, translating lived experience into leadership, employment, and sustainable systems change.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the New Mentality Model of Youth Engagement: Examine how authentic elevation of youth consultation, co-creation, and shared lived experience ,beyond front-line engagement, to executive levels can strengthen organizational decision-making and align with agency goals. 

2. Recognize the Impact of Youth Voice and Representation: Creating mutually beneficial youth engagement opportunities that support youth’s personal and professional development. 

3. Identify and Address barriers to youth participation:  Analyze how organizational barriers and power dynamics affect youth-adult collaboration, and learn strategies to build equitable, youth-informed systems and pathways to employment. 

4. The Pillars of Youth Engagement: Understanding the pillars of youth engagement and how you can make them work in your agency.