One of our Launch innovation teams is advancing their innovation called selfsea. Powered by Peer Health Exchange, selfsea is an online platform co-designed with young people to provide youth with safe, evidence-based, and relevant health resources and information.
Core to all of Peer Health Exchange’s work, and particularly the development of selfsea, is the involvement of their key audience: youth. We sat down with two selfsea team members, Eunetra and Nty, to discuss how they engage with youth to design and distribute selfsea.
Eunetra: In all of Peer Health Exchange’s work, both in a classroom setting and for our digital offerings like selfsea, we are committed to putting young people at the helm. We also know that we have to incentivize youth for their time and expertise. We have an overall Youth Advisory Board, and then that group splits into our Youth Design Group, who support the design and development of selfsea, and our Youth Brand Ambassadors, who help spread the word about selfsea.
Nty: When we talk about selfsea, we say that it is designed for young people, by young people. And we really stick to that, involving them every step of the way. They have also been involved with our work for Launch. For example, when conducting our market testing, we relied on our youth to help. They piloted our survey, provided insight on their comfort level with certain questions, and measured how long it took them to complete the survey to ensure it was a feasible task.
All of our Youth Advisory Board members go through health leadership training, and then the different groups participate in training relevant to their specific tasks. The Youth Design Group receives training in human-centered design. We’ve found they’re very receptive to the concept and that it’s often aligned with the way they already think. They also think more adults should be trained in human-centered design.
Eunetra: And we train our Youth Brand Ambassadors in a lot of topics related to distribution—like social media, email etiquette, and presentations. We give them different activities to do that enables them to share selfsea with other youth, and we provide each ambassador with a personalized link so we can track how the word is spreading. We also welcome their fresh ideas for how to get the word out, and they’ve suggested things ranging from a livestream on Twitch to working together with other ambassadors to raise awareness in their schools.
We’ve found that youth tend to share first with their close connections and their most trusted peers. And as time goes on, we also encourage them to share with broader audiences, such as on their social media accounts.
Nty: We’ve seen how important it is for youth to be champions of their own health discovery, without adults being the gatekeeper of any information they might need. Young people trust each other, and there’s so much more power in them sharing with each other rather than adults having conversations with young people.
Eunetra: Through our participation in Launch, we’ve been sharpening our skills in Google Analytics and really watching as our organic traffic grows. At first, we saw the most usage of selfsea in places where Peer Health Exchange also has a physical presence in classrooms, which makes sense since we introduce the resource during these programs. However, we now see quite a bit of traffic in states where we don’t have a presence. We attribute this growth at least partially to the Youth Ambassador Program. When our youth share with a cousin who lives in a different state, or a friend who has moved away, it expands selfsea’s reach and impact.
We’ll be recruiting soon for our next cohort for selfsea’s Youth Advisory Board. All participation is paid, and it can all be completed remotely. We’re hoping to expand our presence in areas we don’t typically have representation, such as rural areas, states in the Midwest, and other underserved communities.
Learn more about Peer Health Exchange and selfsea.