The Shift: Voices of Prevention — A podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America

Nothing About Us: Centering Youth Partnership

• Prevent Child Abuse America

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In this powerful episode of The Shift: Voices of Prevention, host Nathan Fink converses with Leah Schluter and Adrian Amezcua from the Center for Childhood Safety and Wellbeing at the University of Oregon. Together, they share how youth leadership and data partnerships are transforming child- and family-serving systems.

  • Leah Schluter brings years of practice and research experience in violence prevention—drawing on her long-standing commitment to centering equity and support rather than surveillance into prevention frameworks csaw.uoregon.edu.
  • Adrian Amezcua joins her to explore collaborative projects that elevate youth voices, promote systems change, and turn data into tools for healing and transformation.

Together, Leah and Adrian focus on:

  • Preventing child abuse, neglect, and identity-based violence by uplifting youth partnership and shared decision-making;
  • Designing data-driven, community-informed pathways to care that prevent harms before they occur;
  • Aligning closely with Prevent Child Abuse America’s mission of shifting narratives—from blaming families to building systems grounded in justice, prevention, and belonging.

Why listen?
You’ll walk away with fresh insights on how to embed youth leadership into prevention strategies, use data to foster trust and healing, and rethink what safety means in real-world, community-centered terms.

Tune in to discover how youth-led, data-informed partnerships are paving a new path for prevention.

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SPEAKER_01:

This is The Shift Voices of Prevention, a podcast from Prevent Child Abuse America where we explore bold ideas, cultural change, and what it truly means to support children and families. Join us to change the narrative one conversation at a time. Today's show is brought to you by PCA America's 2025 National Conference. Hosted in Portland, Oregon, August 12th through August 14th, the transformative three-day conference features three keynote speakers and more than 70 workshops that dive into the key drivers of change. From innovative programs and practices to family-focused policies, cutting-edge research, and public awareness and engagement strategies, the conference is designed to push the field toward upstream prevention and creating a future where every child and family can thrive. To be in the room when change happens, visit preventchabuse.org. Hello and welcome to the Shift Voices of Prevention, a podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America. I'm your host, Nathan Fink, and for this episode, I'm excited to welcome Leah Schluter and Adrian Amezqua, both of which are with the Center for Childhood Safety and Well-Being at the University of Oregon, who collaborates with communities, youth, family, and traditionally excluded persons to prevent violence and promote healing, belonging, and child and youth well-being. Leah, Adrian, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, thanks so much for having us today.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so good to see you again. And you'll both be presenting at the 2025 PCA American National Conference in Portland. But for those who don't know about the Center for Childhood Safety and Well-Being, can you tell us a little bit about it and its work?

SPEAKER_02:

You kind of already discussed our mission statement a little bit and our vision, but primarily, yes, we do collaborate with communities in Oregon. We want to make sure youth and families, and especially traditionally excluded persons, are feeling well represented. They have belonging and we're promoting healing. We primarily conduct our work in three ways. So it's usually through research, prevention slash advocacy, and then community building. So in terms of research, we have our OCAP study, which is currently being conducted presently right now. Um that's the Oregon Child Abuse Prevalence Study. That's where we go across Oregon and we're getting insights from youth on violence prevention, resilience, and basically measuring and tracking rates of child abuse, neglect, and identity-based violence. That uh has kind of like two elements to it. That's like a questionnaire where we go travel to these schools and we ask them to participate, 100% voluntary, and then focus groups where it's kind of like a conversation almost like this, where we're asking youth their perspective on certain questions all relating to the same thing, violence prevention. I will say I'm super passionate about that project specifically because like we are currently reviewing some of the statistics um across Oregon right now, and it could be extremely like disheartening to see how prevalent abuse is and neglect is within our own communities and our own backyards. But it's also really inspiring to see it being tracked, evaluated, and we can find ways to prevent it, create solutions, and I especially like collaborating with youth. Some other things we do is a peace report, where that's another report where we went and talked to a bunch of youth across Lane County on how to solve um problems that directly impact them, again, with violence prevention. And then we also have other programs leaning more towards the prevention side, like our youth advisory council, which is a group of youth in our program that provides recommendations, insights on the youth perspective in all of our work. Um and we have a bunch of other programs. I could probably take up the whole time talking about it, but um, yeah, those are just some of our programs.

SPEAKER_01:

It strikes me that, you know, among your many projects and programs, this focus on leveraging coalition building and input from your youth advisory council is unique. Why choose youth for an effort to shift the narrative from intervention to prevention, especially during a time when our families are facing such unprecedented challenges?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know, there's a motto that continuously plays in my head when I'm thinking about this. And it's nothing about us without us, which has been used in various human rights movements, specifically the disability rights movement. But it really speaks to participatory decision making and how we cannot really understand the depth of an issue without involving those who it directly impacts. In our minds, this applies to youth when we're talking about the prevention of child maltreatment, because almost across the board, young people must rely on adults to make decisions for them, with the hopes that adults are making decisions that are in the best interest of young people. But that being so, none of us adults right now can speak to what it's like to be a young person in July of 2025. So we have to recognize that the lived experience of young people is in and of itself expertise, and that young people are going to see things that us adults continuously miss. So when we're thinking about this at Seesaw or the Center for Childhood Safety and Wellbeing, we believe that it's really our role as adults who have more rights, more privilege in society to create platforms for youth to direct the change that really fits their need and for us to create spaces where youth are in charge of their own narrative. Because it's not that we just want youth to be part of this work, but we really see that young people are essential to creating the change that we all want to see. So really kind of focusing in on how young people are leading the way that we move forward.

SPEAKER_02:

This question primarily like brings me to the recommendations from our peace report. And these are recommendations developed by our YAC, our youth. And there's three in specific where we have recommendations for ways to make youth feel more valued, ways to support adults fostering safety and trust with youth, and impactful solutions for preventing child maltreatment in Lane County. And we did it at the individual level, relational level, community level, and societal level. And so what we kind of got from this was like this specific recommendations on ways to make youth feel more valued was really applicable. And it's um at the individual level, we have that we recommend for adults to actually learn about youth by spending time with them instead of assuming or learning from social media. We kind of get a lot of assumptions that way. We want to assume the best in youth and not the worst, right? At the relational level, we want to respect boundaries, respect youth's boundaries and set examples of healthy relationships, healthy coping skills and emotional management skills. We want to set that example. And then for adults specifically, not to victimize themselves and for them to be vulnerable and open about their feelings rather than closed off. And then finally, at that relational level, just show a willingness to learn and be open-minded. At the community or organizational level, we recommend to have an adequate representation in places like schools or organizations that way youth can see themselves being represented and in their own work. And then finally, at the societal or policy level, I really like this one. The youth really encouraged the idea of lowering the voting age so that their opinions and voices can be heard, and then also allowing youth to be involved in policy change in different ways.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Now, you also talk about authentically centering youth. And what brings the authenticity to the table when we talk about bringing youth and their voices to the table.

SPEAKER_02:

So like I think a big thing comes from avoiding tokenization. That really comes to mind when thinking about this, when you're hearing that question, and getting feedback from one person just isn't enough to speak on the experience of others, right? It's kind of discrediting the people that are supposed to represent and also puts a lot of pressure on that individual to make sure that they represent all these people. And another difference is that it really lies in the follow-through. Many organizations claim to center youth by including them in conversations or featuring their voices and reports, but the decisions and priorities and the power structure of the organizations remain the same. They remain adult-driven. And it's important to include youth from the beginning, from the creation cycle, and share that power and making sure that their feedback is truly considered and implemented in the work rather than it just being performative to say, like, you know, to check off the box that they did that, you know. It only further isolates youth from their movement or organization or whatever it may be. Um so authentically centering youth really goes further. It means youth impact that directly shapes the decisions, the resources and policies, and it involves co-creation rather than consultation, right? And not just asking what they think, but building a system that acts in a way that they say, basically sharing the power. And then also finally just recognizing that young people always have something to offer. They have a different perspective that definitely should be incorporated in decisions.

SPEAKER_01:

What's interesting is as you talk about this change, not only are organizations perhaps this will be new for them, but I also think that the youths themselves, this would be a new approach, but I would assume there would be some suspicion. How do you re-engage them then in a process of designing systems that have in the past excluded them?

SPEAKER_00:

One of the things that's initially coming up with for me is just thinking about building trust and transparency. Because I think that there's an expectation or a mentality that that trust is instantly going to be built. But recognizing that takes a lot of time to establish. And recognizing that, you know, in our role as adults, it's up for us to provide information so that youth have all of the pieces to participate and actively share their opinions and kind of provide that direction. The other thing that stands out for me and that we continuously talk about at TSAW is, you know, designing spaces for equity and access. So recognizing that we may have to change the way we do things to facilitate youth involvement. So that means that we might have to provide transportation or Wi-Fi access or a device or something so that youth can actually show up and engage. It means recognizing that lived experience as expertise and compensating accordingly. So that doesn't necessarily have to be financial, but that could be, you know, providing food in a space. That could mean, you know, creating a safe space for youth to be able to be together, or it could be a financial contribution, but recognizing and really appreciating that lived experience as expertise and then creating that safe space. One of the things that we do at Seesaw is we have a policy where we avoid one-on-one adult and youth interactions so that we are kind of recognizing that that space might be uncomfortable for youth to step into. So all of those things, you know, aren't practices that we normally have in adult spaces and require us to go, you know, above and beyond to shift that space to be comfortable for youth to step into and actively want to engage.

SPEAKER_01:

And this for me, it's interesting because I have two young sons, one of which, the older, is now approaching youth or preteen, come teen era. And for years, I've been hearing from friends and family and the larger community, you just wait, wait until they become teenagers. And there's this kind of negative cultural framing that projects them as a problem the community needs to solve. So from your research, from the work and the programs that you're facilitating, talk to me a little bit about this negative framing.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, to put it point blank, it it's adultism, right? It does exist. And young people are systematically mistreated and marginalized. And that's very real. And, you know, it's ingrained in a lot of our systems and practices. There's an activist known as uh John Bell who speaks to adultism. And one of the things that he shared that really resonates with our work is that except for prisoners and a few other institutionalized groups, really young people are more controlled than any other society. So that just, you know, really hits home of, you know, young people don't have a lot of autonomy over their own well-being. And it allows us to place young people as inferior. So recognizing that that's just so harmful to kind of not give that voice or that respect to the young people in our community. And it's intergenerational because all of us have been young people at some point. And it's hard to embody the belief that young people today should receive more respect, more power, more privilege than we adults received when we were growing up. But it shows up so many different ways. In Oregon, one of the ways that it shows up, you know, on a systemic level is minors under the age of 14 cannot access a confidential advocate or somebody who isn't a mandatory reporter of child abuse without parental permission. And, you know, no matter what your stance is on mandatory reporting, this shows how young people have less access to autonomy, to their own narrative about their experiences than adults. As we're moving towards a space where youth are guiding their own narrative, we have to kind of reconsider these things and just question why they are in place and how do we make them so they continue to give youth spaces to have their own voice and create their own narrative.

SPEAKER_02:

So the thing I want to add too is just that, like Leah mentioned adultism. This is like a clear example of how it shows face and in a lot of adults' minds, or even in youth's minds, a lot of youth reported to us in the peace report that kind of mentioned that a lot of adults prioritize like punitive action rather than developmental, right? Instead of working to develop youth and um encourage them and encourage growth, they focus on how to punish them to correct certain behaviors, right? And so a lot of that comes with a lack of patience for youth. And that was a recurrent theme that we saw throughout the report. I have a quote here from one of the youth that shared with us that says, I wish in my childhood adults were more patient with me, as a lot of adults in my life jumped to conclusions too quickly instead of listening and being patient with me. This quote shows the marginalization that youth experience, especially during that early development, very sensitive time that we heard from so many youth throughout the report. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I want to know in your work, and you did list out earlier, but what are some of those practicable strategies, programs, or efforts to embrace our youths in our communities, processes, and decision making?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as Adrien mentioned earlier, we really think about how we're engaging youth on multiple levels, right? So how we're engaging them in conversations about how individual caretaker education and supports are created, how we think about it between adults and youth and how we're creating those relationships. Um, we think about it in terms of, you know, how are youth actively weighing in on building and shaping resources and assets in their communities, whether that be you know, nonprofit organizations, their schools, groups that they're part of, and then also, you know, on a larger scale. So how we're thinking about youth engagement on a policy or a systems level, how are youth able to directly impact and provide feedback that's you know really authentically heard in state and local policies, you know, weighing in on school board decisions, how they are able to actively impact the changes that impact children and families across Oregon. And one of the ways that we're doing this on a community level in Lane County is Seesaw is part of the Lane County Violence Prevention Coalition. And we have created spaces within this coalition where organizations across the county doing similar work are coming together and coming up with solutions for shared problems and working to de-silo the resources and supports that exist in the community. And every single step of the way, every time this group meets, we make sure that there is a space for youth feedback that drives the direction of the work. So it really, you know, requires us to take a step back and reshape the way that we move forward to make sure that we're opening up a space for youth to actively be part of that program to impact that community level change.

SPEAKER_02:

And I want to touch on a another piece that you mentioned on, like you said, tokenizing youth and how it can be extremely harmful. It's it can be extremely frustrating because you know we work with a lot of adults. We see firsthand how adults are tokenizing youth, but also the youth are reporting that they see that as well, that they're experiencing that. So it's not just like uh from our perspective, youth are firsthand sharing that, which only adds to the frustration. You know, tokenizing youth can be really harmful because it's not about truly valuing their voices, it's about serving like an adult agenda, you know. And this just makes me think of another quote from our peace report. The youth explained that sometimes I felt like I was the one chosen to talk because I have a great GPA and I'm pretty okay when it comes to speaking. So I'm an acceptable version of a Latina that they would love to hear from, right? So it's like picking and choosing who is quote unquote acceptable to speak on the behalf of youth, right? And so, like I kind of mentioned earlier, it's a discredit to the people that they're representing because their voices aren't being heard, and it's a lot of pressure to put on one youth or a few youth, right? But in terms of what we do over at Seesaw Strategies, um, we incorporate our YAC, like I mentioned. The R Yak isn't just like a stage piece, it is a part of our organization. They're co-creators in a lot of our content. They're the ones who develop the recommendations within our peace report. Other great examples are that they participate in reviewing data in our OCAP study, the statewide study. They participate in reviewing our questions to ensure that it's youth friendly. They also help identify priorities, things that our organization should prioritize and design prevention strategies throughout our studies. Uh, we also focus on practical barriers for youth. So that looks like stipends, kind of like Leah mentioned, providing stipends, providing transportation and safe spaces where youth can participate, whether that's virtually with the like one-on-one spaces or physically. And so when you put those pieces together, uh youth really feel respected and invested. And that's where like real change can start to happen with the relationship between adults and youth.

SPEAKER_01:

Have you been able to witness any changes in the youth that you have worked with through these programs? And if so, what did it look like?

SPEAKER_00:

We actually recently just asked our youth advisory council members about their experience and about how they are seeing their impact show up in their communities. And one of the things that you know really stands out is that youth aren't just seeing the way that they show up as enhancing their own well-being and safety, but they're seeing it in their peers. So it they are seeing that they have the tools or are able to kind of direct their peers in directions to provide more supports. And again, I think that that plays into kind of this idea that preventing child maltreatment is on the flip side of fostering child safety and well-being. So we see that our youth advisory council members and you know the youth that they interact with are actively being able to speak to the resources in their community and link things together as to how they are actively able to kind of hold each other and create spaces where that well-being and that safety has more opportunity to thrive, which is really exciting. Um, and we are excited to see it continue to grow and be able to be amplified in the youth that we're directly working with and their peers.

SPEAKER_02:

And another thing that I'm super excited for is our youth within the YAC are creating a um video for preparation of the PCA conference to ensure that we're representing their voice as well. And it is just truly, truly amazing how well the videos come together. It's, you know, it's all the youth that are speaking. And it was developed by one of the youth in the YAC, which was super amazing to do. And they go on to explain on how youth have a perspective that adults don't see. They are in the front lines experiencing these problems that youth are experiencing. And so they can see gaps and problems that adults overlook. And I just I'm so excited for everyone at the PCAA conference to get a look at that and see their voices being heard.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, you will be presenting at the 2025 Prevent Child Abuse America National Conference. What can we expect from your presentation there?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're so excited to be there. And we are really gonna kind of start off by sharing some of the research that really has guided us in this direction of why we've really kind of taken on this stance of centering youth so deeply in our work. And then we're gonna share, you know, kind of how we have reflected on these recommendations and what it looks like currently in Lane County and how we're looking to further build out youth-centered work in our prevention work in Lane County and throughout the state of Oregon and kind of have opportunities for group reflection of, you know, how we are implementing youth recommendations in places both within Oregon and around the country. So we're really excited to have that conversation with folks to share kind of what we've learned and then to hear the vast knowledge that's going to be present in that space as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Leah Adrian, I so appreciate you joining the podcast. And we will see you in Portland, Oregon, August 12th through August 14th. Thank you so much for having us, and thank you for the amazing conversation.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks so much for having us.

SPEAKER_01:

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