A few years ago, Healthy Teen Network interviewed several teen parents. Hearing their experiences highlights the complexity of factors and situations that affect their health and well-being.

Uniqwa speaks on education, sharing how support services that helped her find child care and transportation allowed her to successfully complete school.

Lisette recognizes the importance of supporting teen parents because of the potential impact not just for the parent, but for the child as well.

These brief interview clips bring to life the reality that how and where we live, learn, and play matters. These factors affect every one of us—our health and well-being, even our life span.

Elements such as

• Geographic location,
• Shelter,
• Food,
• Security,
• Socioeconomic status,
• Education and employment opportunities,
• Health services,
• Relationships,
• Recreational opportunities,
• The media,
• And so much more,

Shape our long-term physical, mental, emotional, and social health and well-being.

If we want to achieve better outcomes for youth across diverse populations, we must consider this range of elements—or, social determinants of health—for the individual, in our society, communities, and relationships. A 360°, inclusive approach allows us to do just that…Youth 360°.

Addressing the social determinants of health is not a new concept. Probably, many of you are already incorporating these ideas into your work. The Youth 360° Frame brings to light these complex, interrelated elements, and it supports innovative ways of thinking about what we do, and what youth need to thrive.

Whether you are already using this approach, or you are ready to start learning more, Healthy Teen Network offers a variety of capacity-building assistance and resources.

• View the Youth 360° online presentation, through Prezi.
• Meet professionals from around the country to network and share innovative strategies and research using the Youth 360° Frame and social determinants of health. Save the Date for Healthy Teen Network’s 2014 Conference, Synergy: Achieving More Together, in Austin, Texas, October 21-24, 2014.
• Coming soon: a multimedia presentation of case studies with real life examples of an inclusive, collaborative approach, where professionals bring theory to life to support and empower youth. Also in development are fact sheets on the social determinants of health. But you can download the first fact sheet now, an overview, on our website, along with many other resources.

The Youth 360° frame allows us to increase our impact, building collaboration beyond the adolescent sexual and reproductive health field and achieving better outcomes for youth across diverse populations, including marginalized youth and pregnant and parenting teens. Read more about Healthy Teen Network’s strategic plan to promote the use of the Youth 360° frame.

How do you work to provide an inclusive approach for programs and services for youth?

Have you found ways to establish partnerships, to address some of the elements that are relevant to the youth you serve, but are beyond your organization’s capacity to address (e.g., housing)?