Using a systematic review of youth and environmental youth participatory action research outcomes to create a modified implementation capacity framework

Abstract

While youth participatory action research (YPAR), a youth-adult partnered or youth-led approach to knowledge generation and social change, has burgeoned over the last decade, challenges remain related to capacity for its implementation. Yet, the field lacks a YPAR implementation capacity framework. Here, we created a YPAR implementation capacity framework by adapting a key domain (innovation-specific capacity) of a foundational organizational readiness framework that had previously been applied to YPAR conceptually but not empirically. Using literature from a systematic review of YPAR articles reporting youth and environmental outcomes (2015-2022, N = 53), we inductively formed four YPAR implementation capacity domains: (1) resources; (2) training, preparation, and support; (3) relationships within and across systems; (4) characteristics of the YPAR team. We also identified facilitators and barriers of YPAR implementation capacity that we categorized into subdomains. We modified the original innovation-specific capacity construct based on the domains we identified in the literature to begin to create a YPAR implementation capacity framework, intended to set the stage for continued theory building and planning for YPAR.