Volt20

Where We Started

Adolescence and young adulthood is a time when individuals begin to think about what they want for their futures—completing school, the type of work or career that best suits them, perhaps forming a long-term relationship, and generally enjoying life. During adolescence and young adulthood, youth are considering their futures through self-reflection, talking with people they trust, and seeking out reliable information on their own.

We wanted to develop a tool to help young people focus on what’s going on with their bodies, minds, relationships, and the places they live, learn, work, and play. (There’s that Youth 360º idea again!)

With each question, Volt20 pairs resources and information with a short video where teens share their thoughts on different health topics. See more videos on Volt20.

What It Is

Volt20 is the ultimate health resource guide every young person needs to help them thrive. Volt20 helps youth think about their lives, decide what they like about their lives right now, what they wish were different, and plan for a healthy future.

Volt20 helps adolescents and young adults, up to 24 years old, create a written “game plan” for establishing, maintaining, or sustaining a life of health and well-being.

Youth and young adults can power up by answering Volt20’s 20 health questions. After selecting the health issues that concern them the most, they can learn how to start making significant changes. They can share their results with an adult caregiver, teacher, or counselor. Direct them to use the journal to write down their goals and reflect on how they can take steps to achieve them.

Why It Matters

The power of Volt20 lies in its versatility. Young people can complete the survey and read the youth guide by themselves, or they can enlist the support of an adult caregiver, teacher, or counselor.

Using Volt20, young people can choose what’s important to them and make a plan for their future.

Caring adults have their own facilitator guide which provides information on each health topic and also offer tips on how to talk to young people about engaging in healthy behaviors.

What We Found

An evaluation of Volt20 with 142 diverse youth ages 14 to 24 showed that young people and caring adults alike were very satisfied with Volt20. Overall, young people found the content approachable and informative. Caring adults appreciated the tools to help them engage in a conversation about life goals and healthy behavior with young people.

Our evaluation report summarizes the findings nicely.

What’s Next

Educators, counselors, and health workers can use Volt20 to engage young people in healthy behavior change. Adults can engage young people using a one-on-one approach, or they can facilitate Volt20 in large groups with our group planning guide and other resources.

Volt20 was supported in part with generous funding from the Merck Foundation.

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