Healthy Teen Network believes that health promotion, or a holistic approach we call Youth 360⁰, is the best way to achieve positive health and well-being outcomes for all youth. How and where youth live, learn, and play matters. Health promotion is an approach that enables people to increase control over and improve their health, while also moving beyond a focus on individual behavior to a wide range of social and environmental interventions. We subscribe to the social-ecological model; this model is a theory-based framework that demonstrates that behavior is the result of knowledge, values, and attitudes, as well as social influences, including the family, peers, and other people with whom we associate and the schools, communities, and larger society in which we belong. We maintain that a health promotion approach will best foster the positive development of all young people and ensure that they are supported and empowered to lead healthy and fulfilling lives.

Healthy Teen Network shares position statements on relevant issues for young people as a resource to support your advocacy efforts. See more position statements here.