Why Youth-Led Sexual Violence Prevention Programs Matter: Results from a Participatory Evaluation Project

Abstract

Sexual violence among adolescents remains a persistent social and public health issue. Prevention approaches tend to be designed and executed by adults, with young people serving limited roles. Getting young people involved in the field of prevention can be a lofty goal for community-based organizations, who often work with limited time, capacity, funds, and resources to build impactful youth programs. Young people have grown up observing injustices in their communities and have clear, actionable ideas for addressing sexual violence and advancing social change. Unfortunately, little has explained how and why centering youth voices and leadership matters in sexual violence prevention efforts and how it can be done. In this paper, a collection of youth leaders use interview data from a participatory evaluation of a groundbreaking youth-centered prevention program to introduce the Youth-Led Program to Prevention Model. Using members’ testimonies and co-constructed analysis, and inspired by ripple effect and ecological models, the Youth-Led Program to Prevention Model showcases how youth-centered activism and education can advance the goals of sexual violence prevention and impact young people, communities, and systems. Written by youth leaders themselves and based on their lived experiences in the evaluated program, this paper accompanies the Youth-Led Program to Prevention Model with actionable strategies for practitioners who wish to celebrate young people’s contributions and visions for change.

1. Introduction

In 2015, the RCC Sexual Violence Resource Center introduced the GameChangers Program, an initiative where high school students from across Dane County, Wisconsin (WI), United States, come together to challenge the culture of sexual violence. Students gather during the academic year to complete a variety of projects with the goal of engaging the community in their activist work. Youth-directed projects are intended for specific and general audiences, ranging from rallies, art shows, presenting at policy summits, hosting educational workshops for educators and school administration. The GameChangers program’s design and culture are unique; youth members are positioned as experts and activists, whose ideas and experiences serve as the foundation for their prevention work.

In 2023, RCC staff, the GameChangers Coordinator, GameChangers members, and a PhD graduate student from the University of Wisconsin-Madison initiated a comprehensive impact evaluation of this program, to assess how GameChangers impacts its members and contributes to the larger sexual violence prevention landscape. This paper, written by GameChangers alumni and evaluators, uses data from the GameChangers Evaluation Project to show how youth-led projects and the education members receive have cascading effects into the community and advance the goals of prevention. Bridging youth testimonies and analysis, this paper outlines the Youth-Led Program to Prevention Model, a model that aims to inspire other youth-led education and outreach programs to expand impact and transformative change.

2. Co-Authorship

This paper was written by a collection of youth evaluators and alumni members of the RCC GameChangers program. Each youth author self-selected which sections they wished to write and tracked the number of hours spent working on the manuscript, including group meetings and virtual writing sessions. Youth authors then submitted their total hours to the Project Lead and were paid an hourly rate. This approach allowed authors to tailor their contribution based on their interest and availability. Ultimately, all authors shared the labor of data analysis, idea generation, paper planning, writing, revisions, and review. The use of “we” throughout reflects a collective perspective around the data, findings, and implications.

Linnea Hjelm graduated with her PhD in the Civil Society and Community Studies (Human Ecology) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May 2025. Hjelm served as the Project Lead in the GameChangers Evaluation Project between 2023 and 2025 which served as her dissertation project and has been a collaborator with the RCC since 2021. Amelia Dyer is an undergraduate student studying Gender & Women’s Studies with a certificate in Disability Rights & Services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dyer participated in GameChangers from 2019–2023 and served as a student facilitator during the 2022–2023 school year. Kaitlynn Wang graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology in 2024. Wang was involved in the GameChangers program as a member from 2019–2021, as a student facilitator from 2020–2021, and as an adult facilitator beginning October 2024.

Daria Rudykh graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor’s of science degree in Chemistry and a certificate in Computer Science (May 2025) and participated in the GameChangers program between 2018–2022. Summer Herrmann graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021 with their bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Gender & Women’s Studies. Herrmann was a student member of GameChangers for the 2016–2017 school year and returned as an adult facilitator from 2017 to 2025. Crystal Ni is an undergraduate student at Tulane University studying Sociology and Political Economy with a concentration in Law, Economics, and Policy. Ni participated in the GameChangers program from 2021–2023. Olivia Headley is a third-year undergraduate at the University of Minnesota-Rochester studying General Health Science and Chemistry and participated in GameChangers from 2020–2023.

3. Background

3.1. Sexual Violence Prevalence Among Adolescents

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define sexual violence as any sexual act perpetrated against someone without their freely given consent, and encompasses rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment (Basile et al., 2016). Sexual violence intersects with other oppressive systems, including racism, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, and classism; consequently, rates of victimization are higher for LGBTQ+ youth, youth of color, and those with disabilities (Browne et al., 2016; Coulter et al., 2017; Haynie et al., 2013). Nationally representative surveys estimate that between 40 and 50% of adolescents in the United States will experience a form of sexual violence before they turn 18 (Smith et al., 2018). Adolescents aged 12–17 are the largest group of sexual assault victims, with young adults aged 18–24 the next largest group (Haynie et al., 2013). The likelihood of sexual violence perpetration increases with individual and relationship factors such as substance use, delinquency, and adverse childhood experiences that impact behavioral and neurological conditions (Edwards & Banyard, 2018). Community norms, ideologies, and processes can also justify sexual violence and impede justice for survivors (Edwards & Banyard, 2018; Villa-Torres & Svanemyr, 2014).

3.2. Sexual Violence Prevention Approaches

In addition to bystander intervention programs, empowerment training groups, and community mobilization efforts, the bulk of sexual violence prevention occurs through school-based health interventions in middle schools, high schools, or higher education campuses (Edwards & Banyard, 2018; Ellsberg et al., 2018). These classroom-based curricula can range from abstinence-only, which centers on avoiding pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections by avoiding sex altogether, to comprehensive sexual education (CSE), which covers love, relationships, pleasure, sexuality, and desire (Lamerias-Fernández et al., 2021). In 2024, the Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS, 2024), found that out of the 30 states that require sexual education in schools, 17 provided abstinence-only sexual education, 12 states included consent training within their curricula, and only five states held laws requiring CSE. As school-based interventions pose a unique entry point to shape the ideologies of future generations, it is recommended by the SIECUS to provide CSE from K-12th grade (Ellsberg et al., 2018; Henderson, 2023).

While various scholars have pushed for CSE as primary prevention of sexual violence, existing research finds inconsistent results in programming aimed for adolescents (Chandra-Mouli et al., 2015). A systematic review of sexual education in school settings found that interventions showed some effectiveness in increasing contraceptive usage but no effectiveness in promoting healthy sexual behaviors and reducing the risks of sexual violence (Lamerias-Fernández et al., 2021). Similarly, another review revealed that while CSE improved adolescent knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding sexual and reproductive health, most adolescents are not reached by the interventions intended for them (Chandra-Mouli et al., 2015). Unfortunately, interventions that have been proven ineffective continue to be implemented, effective interventions are delivered inefficiently, and interventions that reach adolescents are delivered either with low intensity or short duration (Chandra-Mouli et al., 2015). In addition, the literature suggests that violence prevention programming designed and implemented by adults for adolescents are not as effective due to adolescents’ distrust of curricula that interferes with their autonomy (Banyard et al., 2023; Edwards et al., 2016; Villa-Torres & Svanemyr, 2014).

3.3. Youth-Led Violence Prevention Programming

Running counter to adult-designed and implemented programs, youth-led programs are those where young people have decision-making power (Hart, 1992). Violence prevention efforts in which young people design and/or deliver programming better centralize teens’ lived experiences, voices, and needs (Edwards et al., 2016; McLeod et al., 2015). By extension, this type of prevention programming acknowledges the ways youth are already engaged in advocacy and peer education, whether that be through rallies, clubs, social media, and even graffiti art to speak out against violence (Cody, 2017). One of the most monitored and evaluated youth-related sexual and reproductive health prevention approaches is peer-to-peer education, which refers to interventions that are delivered by youth for youth audiences (Villa-Torres & Svanemyr, 2014). Peer-to-peer education create environments where young people can talk about sexual violence, sex, and relationships with other people like them (Cody, 2017; McLeod et al., 2015; Struthers et al., 2019).

Sexual violence prevention programs where young people are involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation process often result in ideas that are more relevant to the lived experiences of other young people and can positively impact the youth involved (Edwards et al., 2016; Villa-Torres & Svanemyr, 2014). In addition to learning specific skills within violence prevention and sexual and reproductive health, youth engagement in interventions can build an increased sense of agency and personal efficacy and provide opportunities for leadership and exposure to people with different ages and backgrounds (Banyard et al., 2023; Powers & Tiffany, 2006). Though the importance of youth programs has been well documented in the literature (Durlak et al., 2010; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2016), data on the implementation and impacts of youth-led programs, especially in the context of sexual violence prevention, remain scarce (Edwards et al., 2022; Hjelm, 2024).

3.4. Sexual Violence in Wisconsin, United States

Regional dynamics in Wisconsin shape the landscape for youth-led prevention efforts like GameChangers. Largely, sexual violence incidence among teens and young adults in Wisconsin is complicated by a toxic drinking culture (Pomazal et al., 2023). The relationship between alcohol use and sexual violence is well-studied (Haynie et al., 2013; Ngo et al., 2018); over half of teen and young adult sexual assaults nationwide involve underage alcohol consumption from the perpetrator, victim, or both (The Maryland Collaborative, 2016). From 2017 to 2019 in Wisconsin, individuals aged 15 to 24 accounted for 32% of emergency department visits related to sexual violence injuries and 35% of reports of forcible sex offenses made (Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 2020). A comprehensive sexual violence prevention needs assessment conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services in 2019 revealed a shared desire from both providers and community members for more community-based approaches and greater engagement of youth in conversations about prevention education (Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 2019, p. 3); these findings validate the mission of GameChangers and provide direction for members’ projects.

Persistent adolescent sexual violence in Wisconsin has provoked ongoing community frustrations, leading to collective action often organized by high school students (Viviani, 2021). For example, Middleton High School, in Dane County, WI, has been embroiled in multiple incidents, including a sexual harassment and bullying investigation involving its football team in 2023 (Reigstad & Ross, 2023) and an incident involving non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit photos in 2020 (Roach, 2020). Similarly, Madison East High School has faced several high-profile incidents, ranging from a teacher who has been sentenced for secretly filming and producing sexually explicit videos of students in 2021 (U.S. Attorney’s Office, 2021) to reported sexual assaults among students that sparked walkouts and rallies, drawing attention from both parents and lawmakers (Girard, 2021). Many of these cases remain unresolved, reflecting gaps in institutional accountability. Ultimately, there is a growing sense among young people in Wisconsin that youth-led efforts are critical for tackling sexual violence.

To respond to these challenges, several Wisconsin legislators have introduced measures to combat sexual violence and its underlying causes, including policies such as the Healthy Youth Act by State Representative Chris Taylor and teen dating violence legislation led by State Senator Melissa Agard that supports the use of CSE in public schools. Currently, Wisconsin does not mandate CSE in its public high schools, leaving curriculum decisions to individual school districts. While state guidelines require that any provided instruction be medically accurate and age-appropriate, abstinence-based sex education is still the norm. That curriculum does not include lessons on sexual consent, which may limit students’ understanding of healthy relationships and sexual violence (Wisconsin State Legislature, 2024). As a result, students often are forced to seek other spaces for information and training, like sexual violence resource centers (Lee et al., 2015). Programs like GameChangers in Wisconsin aim to fill this gap by providing accessible education led by peers who understand the lived realities of their communities. Unfortunately, little is understood about how youth-centered programs empower youth members and leverage their skills to address sexual violence on a larger scale.

4. Project Context

This paper explores the GameChangers Program, the Dane County RCC Sexual Violence Resource Center (RCC)’s Youth Advisory Board. For over 50 years, the RCC has provided free and confidential services to survivors of sexual violence. The RCC’s mission is to center survivors, promote societal change, and advocate for social equity in Dane County. The GameChangers program is a grant-funded initiative that brings together a group of around 20 high school students from across Dane County, Wisconsin who have diverse backgrounds and a passion for social justice. GameChangers is overseen by a Program Coordinator and supported by three adult facilitators, who serve as mentors to the high school members.

Each year, GameChangers members learn from guest speakers and their adult mentors within and outside of the RCC organization on a variety of social issues. Members organize and design community impact projects that have included art shows, rallies, and educational workshops. Supported by one of three adult facilitators, student groups determine community needs, identify audiences, and implement project components. GameChangers members meet for 10 h a month and are paid an hourly wage as well as provided mileage reimbursement and meals at all in-person sessions. The GameChangers curriculum intentionally incorporates conversations about intersectionality as a way of viewing the intersecting and interlocking power structures like race, sex, gender, and class (Crenshaw, 1991). GameChangers students are encouraged to build an intersectional lens of sexual violence that considers interacting systems of oppression, including racism, sexism, homophobia and ableism. This lens equips members to be critical thinkers as they design and execute their community-facing projects.

By engaging youth directly in sexual violence prevention and advocacy, the program supports members’ development of project planning skills and provides exposure to the non-profit and care sector, building personal and political efficacy. The program’s design blends both youth-led and peer-to-peer components. In addition, the GameChangers program guides the RCC to incorporate and address the perspectives and needs of young people in their other outreach, education, and direct service activities.

GameChangers Evaluation Project

The GameChangers Evaluation Project (GCEP) was a collaborative effort conducted by RCC and GameChangers leadership, GameChangers members and alumni, and an external collaborator from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (“the planning team”). Between February 2023 and May 2025, the GCEP focused on exploring and learning from the experiences of GameChangers members and alumni about how the program has impacted their lives. The project concentrated on how the youth-led program shapes the sexual violence prevention landscape, local social change efforts, and youth development. The GCEP aimed to use the evaluative data to expand support and funding for the GameChangers program and promote youth-led programs across sectors.

The GCEP was divided into three central phases, with GameChangers members and alumni integrated across each phase. Hjelm served as the Project Lead, who oversaw the implementation of the three phases. In Phase 1, the planning team identified which outcomes were most of interest and which data collection methods would be most appropriate to assess them. Data was collected from GameChangers members and alumni during 1-on-1 sessions with the Project Lead. Questions inquired about the program’s culture, projects, education, and community. In Phase 2, GameChangers members and alumni were invited as youth evaluators into participatory workshops to draw conclusions from the evaluation data about the impact of leadership in GameChangers on the larger ecosystem. In Phase 3, youth evaluators used their analysis and findings to develop a collection of evaluation products for various audiences, one of which was this manuscript. All authors of this paper were involved in all three phases of the GCEP.

5. Evaluation Methods

5.1. Evaluation Design

The GCEP utilized a transformative participatory evaluation design which is characterized by (1) shared control of key stakeholders in the development and execution of the evaluation and (2) intentions for influencing social and organizational transformation as a result of the evaluation findings (Zukoski & Bosserman, 2018). The transformative paradigm is rooted in social justice principles of equity and inclusion (Zukoski & Bosserman, 2018). This design positioned young people in the GCEP as more than a source of data by providing a variety of opportunities for youth to immerse themselves in the data and identify what the data meant and for whom (Coad & Evans, 2008; Ozer, 2017).

The inclusion of youth evaluators increases the likelihood that the project collects the “contextual input necessary to represent the unique youth experience” (Jacquez et al., 2013, p. 177) and ensures that the research products are more useful and meaningful to young people (Liebenberg et al., 2020). Teixeira et al. (2021) argue that youth have a right to participate in organizational processes, with those unique experiences supporting young people’s evaluation capacity-building and meaning-making. Ultimately, the use of participatory methods in the GCEP highlighted evaluators’ existing strengths and interests (Flicker & Guta, 2008) and clarified the organization’s role in the violence prevention ecosystem in Dane County.

5.2. Participants

Fourteen youth experts, consisting of 12 GameChangers alumni and 2 current GameChangers members, completed semi-structured interviews with the Project Lead. Experts ranged from 17 to 26 years old. The length of participation in GameChangers in the sample averaged 2.5 years (

Table 1. Years participated in GameChangers among youth experts.

Years Participated in GameChangers	n
One year	3
Two years	5
Three years	2
Four years	4

Note. N = 14.

). Phases 2 and 3 invited alumni and additional members as youth evaluators to lead analysis and dissemination activities. The demographics of youth experts and evaluators involved in the GCEP were not collected nor are reported to protect members’ identities.

Table 2. Participation across the GCEP.

Phase 1: Data Collection	14 youth experts	Current, returning members or alumni of GameChangers
Phase 2: Data Analysis	8 youth evaluators	Pulled from youth expert pool; all alumni
Phase 3: Dissemination	10 youth evaluators	Included evaluators from Phase 2 and four additional/new alumni of GameChangers
Article Preparation and Writing	6 youth evaluators	All authors contributed data as youth experts and were engaged as evaluators in Phases 2 and 3

offers a breakdown of the three phases and their different participant groups.

5.3. Procedure

Data Protections and Ethics. All protocols and procedures for the GCEP were submitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institutional Review Board for full review. Ultimately, the University of Wisconsin Institutional Review Board deemed the GCEP exempt from full review and qualified it as program evaluation/quality improvement (#2023-1541). Each youth expert who contributed data for the GCEP reviewed and signed an informed consent document that outlined expectations, data protections, and plan for compensation and dissemination of findings. Transcriptions of each interview were retained through the completion of the evaluation project and stored securely in a password-protected and multi-authenticated folder, only accessible by the Project Lead. All transcriptions were de-identified prior to analysis and each participant was assigned a pseudonym to be used in all deliverables; these actions were to ensure youth expert privacy during the participatory analysis. Each participant received their transcript and was offered an opportunity to make revisions, retractions, or additions to their transcript prior to analysis.

Data Collection. To recruit participants for Phase 1, emails were sent to alumni and presentations were given to current GameChangers members. Those interested were invited to schedule and meet with the Project Lead in person or virtually, depending on their preference, to be interviewed. Interview questions inquired about individual program experiences and the overall impact of the education, mentorship, community-building, and project planning opportunities the program provides, as well as the ability of the GameChangers program to address sexual violence among adolescents and the larger community. The interview protocol is provided in Appendix A. Transcriptions of each interview session were developed with participant consent. These interview data and findings served as the data for this paper.

Participatory Thematic Analysis and Model Development. Prior to the participatory thematic analysis (Liebenberg et al., 2020) process in Phase 2, the Project Lead identified and pulled over 100 anonymized excerpts from the 14 interviews. This action was to further conceal youth experts’ identities. During three in-person workshops moderated by the Project Lead, eight youth evaluators used mapping activities and facilitated discussion to explore and analyze the interview data. Youth evaluators identified patterns and connections and ultimately organized findings into larger themes and smaller codes (Braun & Clarke, 2006). During the discussion around the excerpts and themes, evaluators began to visualize how the education and project components of the GameChangers program have expansive impacts on youth members that cascade outward into the larger ecosystem. Youth evaluators and the Project Lead organized these impacts across three ecological levels: members themselves, their immediate network, and larger systems.

The Youth-Led Program to Prevention Model integrates these findings to show how initiatives like GameChangers prevent sexual violence and address sexual violence through the education and empowerment of youth activists. Inspired by Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory that highlights the significance of interactions between people, institutions, and systems for human development, our resulting Youth-Led Program to Prevention Model reflects young people’s collective knowledge construction and analysis centering on the power and influence of youth leadership in sexual violence prevention.

6. Findings

The Youth-Led Program to Prevention (YLPP) Model (Figure 1) is a visual representation of how GameChangers as a youth-centered community-based violence prevention initiative influences social change through its members. To describe and show the cascading impacts of (1) Member Education and (2) Youth-Led Projects, the YLPP model bridges the qualitative findings from the GCEP and evaluators’ perspectives to explain how these two components impact and influence youth leaders, the local community, and society at large. We intersperse quotations from GameChangers members to show how young people visualize themselves, their work, and this innovative program as part of the violence prevention landscape. To close, we use the YLPP to identify implications and strategies for youth programs and community-based organizations who wish to better advance youth-led social change.

6.1. Member Education

The GameChangers program advances the goals of prevention through the education of its members. Youth evaluators believe the education component has cascading impacts ranging from the individual to the community level. The program recognizes that in a culture that is increasingly turning to censorship, limitations may be placed on the curriculum public high schools can teach (Feingold & Weishart, 2023; Hornbeck & Malin, 2023). Therefore, these schools may not be adequate in addressing the intersections between gender, race, ability, and sexual violence or providing space for young people to discuss how these affect their lives (Kuelzer, 2023). To address gaps in knowledge, over the academic year members receive lessons spanning across social justice, sexual violence, survivor advocacy, to professional skills such as community organizing, event planning, and writing emails. Members learn directly from the Program Coordinator, adult facilitators, and guest speakers, with topics informed by their interests and needs. Through conversations and activities, members are encouraged to ask questions, challenge each other’s ideas, and expand their understanding of the world around them.

Youth Impact. Youth-led programs that both provide spaces for education and personal growth allow youth members to deepen their understanding of themselves and the world. Banyan shared how GameChangers impacted them directly:

“I feel like GameChangers helped me not hide away from myself and be able to speak my truth and advocate for myself and be able to just be myself without fear of other people judging me”.

As youth are exposed to information about sexual violence—both its vulnerabilities and consequences—members are better able to advocate for and protect themselves from harm. Lessons on healthy boundaries and assertive communication equip youth to demand respect from partners, peers, and family members, and advocate for their desires and needs in all situations.

The GameChangers Coordinator and adult facilitators tailor education and training around members’ interests. For instance, after high school, many members plan to attend college, with some being the first in their family to do so. One year, the cohort communicated about their confusion and lack of knowledge surrounding how to pay for their education and how to minimize student debt. To address this, GameChangers adult allies created a presentation around financial education and shared their experiences paying for college. As a result, GameChangers members felt more equipped to make informed decisions regarding their finances. The education provided by GameChangers empowers members in more ways than one, by providing access to essential training and knowledge that can ultimately expand their readiness for the future.

Exposure to guest speakers from across the county builds members’ local community-based network of health providers and advocates, so that members knew where to get help and how to connect with and to others. One year, a local youth organization visited a GameChangers meeting to speak about how homelessness disproportionately affects LGBTQ+ individuals and shared information about shelters and employment services that youth could turn to if they ever needed help. Following this session, evaluators felt that these resources made them feel less isolated and prepared to pass the knowledge forward, as Rowan explained:

“We were well equipped with an understanding and resources so that we ourselves could look out for anybody that needed help. So, I think on a personal level, it gave us things that we could use if we ever needed them”.

Youth-led programs that teach and prioritize self-care grant youth members the tools they need to prevent burnout, something essential to activism and advocacy work. Ayla explained: “If you want to have longevity in whatever activism you’re doing, you need to also prioritize your own well-being”. In GameChangers, members learn to practice radical self-care. As Audre Lorde (1988, p. 332) describes in her book A Burst of Light, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare”. Radical self-care incorporates seeking joy and listening to one’s body, and it allows us to better show up for our communities and create meaningful change. Radical self-care is individually specific, going beyond the typical bubble bath often portrayed in the media. During the COVID-19 pandemic as meetings went virtual, GameChangers facilitators sent members kits consisting of autobiographies on prominent social justice activists, journals with mental health prompts, and other small trinkets to encourage self-care exploration. During meetings, members are encouraged to utilize their new coping strategies as they learn together, knowing that for many, sexual violence-related education can be distressing. Members are empowered to see self-care as essential for sustainability as emerging activists and advocates. To further encourage and reward these priorities, self-care time is woven into members’ monthly timesheets.

The education component of GameChangers also fosters a sense of community among members, supporting feelings of belonging, trust, and a passion for social change. Youth members become comfortable with their peers as they share their lived experiences and identify similar goals of dismantling rape culture. Each member’s educational journey is not isolated; GameChangers offers a valuable space for connection youth may not be able to find elsewhere. A sense of community in the program allows members to grow confident in themselves and be vulnerable. Because the sexual violence education emphasizes its systemic nature, survivors in the program understand that sexual violence is pervasive and that they are not alone.

Community Impact. Youth-led programs provide youth the opportunity to actively bring new education and skills into their immediate circles to influence peers, partners, and family members as a form of primary prevention. Cypress shared how they worked hard as a Campus Resident Assistant to offer a similarly welcoming and safe for her residents by having contraception freely available: “I’m just trying to make these conversations more open, just like they were in GameChangers, and trying to recreate the environment that there was in GameChangers”. Knowledge about local resources and community-based organizations are assets when GameChangers are called in to support others through traumatic experiences, as are lessons learned about how to communicate care and empathy. Ayla explained this realization:

“Things that might feel [like] the initial respectful thing to ask, might not actually be what that person is wanting in that moment. I’ve learned a lot of strategies and ways that empathy can look different to different people in different situations”.

GameChangers members are especially influential because of their status as youth, in settings, like high schools, where rape culture can thrive. For example, adult educators may not be perceived as relatable or relevant to youth audiences. However, GameChangers facilitators and members are better able to foster the rapport and respect needed to target these settings. In a project targeting high school boys, GameChangers were able to educate on an equal level, presenting as peers rather than superiors. The activities were designed by youth presenters, who kept their past interactions with high school boys in mind. Thoughtful prompts and responsive scenarios encouraged the boys to engage and increased their willingness to listen and learn, as demonstrated by their competitiveness in activities and insights during discussions.

Members’ exposure to guest speakers in public health fields helped them see the urgency for bridges across sectors. Ayla explained:

“There’s so many intersections between social justice and health, and social justice and law and all sorts of different fields and academia and teaching… I think GameChangers has definitely shown me the need to have advocates in all different fields”.

GameChangers members graduate the program equipped and excited to be advocates for social change, with many over the years pursuing degrees and coursework in social work, nursing, medicine, and gender studies. They are knowledgeable about how social change is made possible through interactions across divides. Connecting with others in the field also helps GameChangers feel integrated into the violence prevention landscape. Hearing about the journeys and roles of community advocates shows GameChangers members pathways for continued community engagement as they graduate the program and seek new experiences.

Systems Impact. The youth and community impacts of member education and empowerment in youth-led programs result in larger systems-level shifts, as members enter higher education and the workforce and influence norms and practices. Youth members learn to create transformative communities and work cultures where people, not work, are prioritized. Nonprofit public health and advocacy settings are notorious for being overburdened and experiencing high turnover and burnout among staff, for reasons including low pay, long hours, limited mobility, and negative workplace norms (Im et al., 2024). Because members get an opportunity to work in a setting that values accessibility, equity, and solidarity, alumni advocate for these same conditions in other spaces. For instance, one year, members analyzed the messages and verbiage of school dress codes and how they could be seen as devaluing girls’ education. They brought up these concerns in an annual policy summit hosted by the RCC, leading to increased attention and revisions of dress code policy in Wisconsin public schools. In situations like this, the affiliation with the RCC also validates GameChangers members’ credibility and calls adults in to take their ideas seriously.

GameChangers lessons also emphasize that a socially responsible and empathetic community that centers accessibility and care fosters increased longevity among activists, advocates, and nonprofit staff. These qualities prevent burnout so that providers and advocates can better serve sexual violence survivors. Further, by celebrating the unique and shared identities among its members, GameChangers instills values of equity and inclusion that foster a powerful and caring community. Rowan explained how they as an advocate how their values are central to how they work in a team:

“I definitely left more empowered to put my best foot forward in professional settings, to advocate for others. Working with a lot of people who come from different backgrounds, who had different skills to bring to the table, different values, [GameChangers] made me much more open, and a person that was willing to also step back”.

Through the educational opportunities that RCC presents and the intentional exposure to local leaders, members bring their values and knowledge into the workforce. As Ayla explained:

“By forming that solidarity from a fairly young age and getting involved with activism, GameChangers is creating new leaders and instilling all these different ideals in young people that will serve on a personal level into adulthood but will also make a more responsible and empathetic community as we all get older”.

As GameChangers members graduate the program as empowered and skilled activists, they use their perspectives and progressive values to influence norms and practices in the workforce and across their campuses. These values and knowledge also serve as a foundation within the program for members’ community-facing projects.

6.2. Youth-Led Projects

Through the implementation of year-long youth-led projects, GameChangers members are directly impacted by the accompanying skill development, and they are agents that advance a safer and more just society by providing communities and local leaders with tools and resources. GameChangers projects become catalysts to affect systems of power to improve conditions to improve care and conditions for sexual violence survivors and young leaders.

Youth Impact. Youth-led projects provide opportunities for youth to combine their experiences and knowledge to develop deliverables and impactful projects. Youth unpack their own experiences and those of their peers to identify needs of the broader community. As Oak shared, GameChangers projects allow members to “engage in these [issues] in their own lives, in their own ways”. Utilizing the language and critical lens developed through lessons and guest speakers, members grapple with current events in Wisconsin and beyond to explore and interrogate how interactions with advocacy and sexual violence are shaped by identities, privileges, and positions of power. Further, the practice of designing projects to address harms in their communities helps members process lived experiences and be part of changing the conversation around sexual violence. Ash explained GameChangers’ mission:

“A lot of what GameChangers does as its core work is seeking to understand how we can make a world that isn’t built around violence and oppression”.

The execution of their youth-led projects also builds expansive skills for the future and supports members healthy transitions into adulthood. Everything from team building to community outreach to effective communications are skills young activists can use and build upon during and after they graduate GameChangers. By extension, projects are environments for youth leaders to find purpose and direction. Willow shared:

“GameChangers made me more confident in my own skills because we got so many opportunities to show off our expertise”.

Community Impact. To deliver their projects, GameChangers members forge connections and relationships with peers and local leaders in order to bring their skills, education, and empowerment into the broader community. GameChangers and their allies discuss and outline what effective support and action is needed at multiple levels of impact and ideate about solutions. Youth-led programs, like GameChangers, must encourage members to consider all perspectives when thinking about and planning public-facing projects. Extensive communication and dialogue about past and current issues and their intersections broaden the possibilities for outreach with other youth and adults because members approach those interactions with empathy and care.

GameChangers youth-led projects become a pathway to educate the public through the creation of free and accessible resources and tools to direct focus to key issues impacting communities. For example, the 2021–2022 GameChangers cohort developed a comprehensive guide with resources, best practices, and information for transgender and LGBTQ+ survivors, now a staple on the RCC’s website. This public-facing project initially began through conversations between adult facilitators and a trans student facilitator who noted a lack of resources for trans survivors of sexual violence. By publishing this project on the RCC website, the GameChangers program is centering and celebrating the work of youth advocates. Youth-led programs must give their members credit for their contributions to organizational processes, another facet of community impact that is often overlooked.

Through their projects, youth members help key players build awareness in the community about sexual violence and the conditions that perpetuate it. GameChangers students influence how teachers, administrators, and policymakers support and interact with youth and survivors. One year, GameChangers planned and facilitated a workshop titled “A Youth Guide to Supporting Survivors in Your School” for school administrators, teachers, and staff. This project was inspired by several instances of adolescent sexual violence in Dane County schools and the lacking or harmful response from administrators. GameChangers students incorporated strategies to dismantle rape culture and discussed how to cultivate safe, respectful, and empowering environments where youth can thrive. Sharing best practices to connect with youth, such as holding office hours and modeling vulnerability, this GameChangers project connected adults in their lives with knowledge and resources to work towards a culture of consent in and out of the classroom. Influenced by young people’s ideas for change, key players in their communities can better understand how to address and respond to sexual violence.

Systems Impact. As members of youth-led programs enact projects that directly impact their communities, they model a culture of action, empowerment, and youth leadership that can be incorporated into systems that serve young people. GameChangers projects are also settings where youth and key stakeholders come into conversation about pressing needs and issues, inspiring institutions and organizations to improve their care of youth and survivors through systems change. For example, the school-facing workshop described above influenced administrators to develop new policy for how to respond to allegations of sexual assault amongst their student body and created more pathways for student survivors to get support. People and organizations who are most central to policy development, execution, and enforcement are responsible to those most impacted by those policies, like young people.

The impactful work of GameChangers students has rippling effects in fostering progress, promoting collaboration between youth and those in positions of authority, and cultivating safer spaces for everyone. These connections promote more effective and culturally congruent administrative responses to sexual violence through community-based action. GameChangers students learn through education and active participation in advocacy work so that when we collectively know better, we can collectively do better. Members become involved with advocacy work through their projects, collaborating with key stakeholders and organizations to push the movement for social change and sexual violence prevention forward. As Cypress explained about one of their school-facing projects,

“I felt like I was going to impact the educators and then later down the line, I was going to be able to affect the students. I felt like I was going make a long-term goal and I was able to prevent sexual violence”.

Through advocacy and community outreach, GameChangers students inspire people of all ages to become involved, especially other youth and survivors. This youth and survivor-led movement recognizes the contributions and experiences as valuable and important, providing safe spaces for voices to be heard. By centering youth and survivor voices in their own action plans and projects, GameChangers members advocate for the inclusion of youth and survivors in organizational decision-making. By addressing barriers to access, support, and care, GameChangers students promote a world revolving around accessibility and community to center and uplift the voices of those most impacted by sexual violence and other oppressions.

6.3. Supportive Settings Matter

The impacts of GameChangers education and youth-led projects are made possible because they take place within a supportive peer community, program culture, and value-driven organization. Many organizations, even those with good intentions, fall victim to adultism, a bias that perceives adults’ ideas and visions as inherently better and more meaningful than those of young people (Flasher, 1978). In many “youth-led” programs, young people can be positioned as tokens and serve as a decoration for good publicity, rather than leveraging young people’s skill, drive, and power when engaging in prevention work (Hart, 1992). Youth-led programs that not only support but honor young people’s labor and time are better able to advance prevention efforts because genuine pathways exist for youth to make contributions in ways that align with their gifts and passions.

Organizational Values. Youth-led programs are able to advance the goals of prevention when they operate within an organization that prioritizes leadership, compensation, and accessibility for youth members. The RCC ensures that the adult staff in the GameChangers program prioritize and uplift the voices of the youth leaders. Organization directors dedicate dollars each year to the professional development of the adult facilitators for this very reason. In GameChangers, the coordinator and facilitators are present to inform and guide the students, leading lessons and bringing in guest speakers, but the ideas and work central to GameChangers projects are led by members themselves. Roger Hart’s ladder of participation would place GameChangers on the higher end of the “rungs”-youth-centered, oriented, and led, as opposed to adult-led and directed (Hart, 1992). When organizations treat their students as autonomous individuals engaging in prevention work, it allows young people the freedom to advocate for and address their community’s needs. Youth have a unique and powerful position within schools and community spaces to see the groups that need better care and attention. As Banyan explained:

“There’s a central focus on fostering change and having youth be at the center of that, and centering youth voice and centering the voices of communities who have been historically underrepresented and devalued, but then also the communities who are also currently going through that”.

In addition to celebrating young people’s perspectives, the GameChangers program directs the bulk of its grant funding to training and compensating their members, as well as providing meals and mileage reimbursement. When organizations value and incorporate accessibility into their programming, they reduce the many financial barriers youth can experience, especially those who are low income. By extension, the GCEP findings suggest that compensation plays a significant role as an incentive to join, a tool for retention, and a strategy to prove to young people that the organization values their contributions. Young leaders should never be expected to undertake activities for free, as Acacia explained, “We’re getting paid for this because it is actual work we are doing in the world”.

Program Culture. Another overarching theme in the YLPP model is that youth-led programs can advance the goals of prevention when there is a program culture that celebrates diversity, dialogue, and solidarity between members and adult mentors. GameChangers members represent different communities across Wisconsin, and they are also invited to participate in training and lectures from many different community leaders and organizers. GameChangers meetings welcome a variety of life experiences, allowing members to engage in and practice open, honest, and radical discussions. Members are at a place in their activist journeys where they are still very enmeshed in their school and family communities; so, when they are invited to develop their activist rhetoric in a safe and autonomous manner in a community-based program with students from different communities, it can serve as an empowering space where radical thought and personal transformation can occur. Members can bring their ideas and concerns to light with the assurance that they will be respected. This diversity of voices, solidarity among members, and open dialogue all work to further prevention initiatives through new radical imaginings and member empowerment.

Peer Community. Many young people seek out programs like GameChangers to find community (McGuire et al., 2016). For this reason, youth-led programs are better able to advance the goals of prevention when they operate within a community of peers that values mutual respect and learning, and cares for each other. The members meet in the beginning of the school year and over the course of regular meetings, solidify their connections to each other as the year and projects progress. As they move through each meeting, they build connections that last long after the program has ended. Peer communities can uplift and empower, protect youth against social isolation and exclusion, and can serve as a space to recharge with peers that all have a common goal. This fosters radical future imaginings, builds momentum toward their projects, and provides an avenue for meaningful cultural and structural change. A safe and welcoming environment is even more important in sexual violence prevention and advocacy settings that are felt so deeply by young people. Banyan explained:

“Especially with the aspect of being educated by different types of people and working together in the projects, it was really important to build trust and build community and get to know each other”.

7. Strategies for Youth Programs

Upon reflection of the GCEP findings and preparation of this manuscript, the authors noticed a severe lack of guidance intended for non-profits and other organizations who wish to launch impactful youth-led programs. Therefore, this strategies section outlines what this collective group believes are the best practices to do so. The recommendations presented below are informed by the authors’ lived experiences in GameChangers and aim to address this significant knowledge gap.

7.1. Accessibility and Accommodating Needs

Youth-led programs develop and support more meaningful experiences for all members when they are accessible for all members. When programs offer mileage reimbursement and coordinate alternative transportation, young people are able to come to work with one less stressor in the back of their mind, regardless of their financial need. Like GameChangers, programs should ask students early and often what they need to be successful in the program. Through anonymously surveying preferences for accommodation needs or additional interests, programs chip away at accessibility barriers that impede youth engagement. Making such considerations when creating and implementing youth activism programs can help ensure that members feel comfortable and can focus on their projects and community-building.

Accessibility and self-care are especially important in GameChangers meetings because of the complexity and sensitive nature of their discussions. Some topics discussed may impact the mental health of students negatively, so recognizing when to step away is a valuable skill youth leaders should develop. Facing the layers of oppression that have the potential to fill lives with hatred, violence, and division can truly take a toll on anyone’s mental health. The uncomfortable and vulnerable discussions around oppression is an essential skill for everyone, especially those who hold privilege or social power who seek advocacy and public health work. Programs and adult mentors can model this by practicing active listening and checking in one-on-one with members. This creates an environment where students feel comfortable taking mental health breaks, showing up authentically, and voicing their opinions. Like in GameChangers, youth advocacy programs must make clear to young leaders the significance of self-care and awareness by emphasizing and rewarding such practices.

7.2. Platforming Youth Voice and Autonomy

Youth-led programs create impactful experiences for members by providing a platform for young people to practice autonomy. Youth should be able to choose and design projects that are centered around topics that align with their passions and affect their daily lives. Through youth-led projects, members can learn how to delegate the work and ensure that the perspectives and talents of their peers are directly incorporated—this autonomy directly impacts students’ skill development and sense of self. While the project responsibilities, deliverables, and time management fall on the youth, the adult facilitators play a guiding role in supporting accountability, feasibility, and logistics as needed. Programs can facilitate safe and empowering environments by amplifying youth voices without speaking over them.

Beyond the projects themselves, programs should encourage students to voice their opinions and allow them to be part of decision-making processes, like identifying which areas or topics they want to learn about. Through an education based on their interests and experiences, students gain further insight about the historical background of social justice issues and use their expanded understandings to address those issues. However, social problems shouldn’t be the only focus. Adult advocates looking to start youth activism programs like GameChangers should create opportunities for students to identify collective action strategies and have fun. Programs must make time for laughter and levity as these sustain young people and their activism. The world is hard enough on young people; the personal growth and professional development foundational to youth programs should never come at the cost of joy.

7.3. Creating a Meaningful Program and Culture

As our evaluation indicates, a supportive culture for impactful youth-led programs starts at the organization level. Bringing in the right kinds of adults into youth spaces is critical; organizations must coordinate a leadership team that walks the walk of youth empowerment. Whether their role be Executive Director, Program Coordinator, or volunteer, staff alignment in values and actions is essential because young people can quickly tell which adults truly care about their ideas and interests. Non-profits and other organizations should discuss and strategize with young people themselves about which components would be engaging and support their healthy development. We believe no youth program should be designed without youth input.

To foster a safe and welcoming culture within the program, dialogue between students about lived experiences should be encouraged to build the solidarity and trust needed for collaboration. These conversations should always be accompanied by discussions about confidentiality and accountability, to ensure privacy is protected. As youth are vulnerable with each other, there must also be opportunities for adult mentors to share their stories. With a foundation of trust and transparency, accountability is possible: youth leaders can hold their adult mentors accountable to honoring their voices and supporting their visions, and members can hold themselves accountable to learning from their mistakes and bringing that learning into future actions.

8. Future Directions for Program Evaluation

Young people seek out community-based programs seeking unique experiences, new skills, and community (McGuire et al., 2016). Youth choose which programs to join for a different set of reasons, including relevance to their interests and values, alignment with their availability/schedule, and the appeal of the program structure (Gillard & Witt, 2008). Less is known, however, about how different components (e.g., youth-led projects, mentorship, compensation) uniquely support retention in youth programs. Larger-scale evaluation is needed to compare programs that do and do not include compensation to see how that component shapes program accessibility, retention, and impacts on youth members. Evidence that validates the importance of compensation in community-based youth programs would undoubtedly justify and increase this practice in nonprofit settings and beyond.

The GameChangers Evaluation revealed that this youth-led sexual violence prevention initiative has cascading impacts, and we believe what works for GameChangers could work in other settings and with other youth populations. Larger cities with a significant nonprofit sector naturally have more opportunities for youth engagement. All youth should have access to these opportunities, yet there are gaps in program location, target audiences, and accessibility. Scholars and practitioners should investigate the obstacles and barriers that exist for the development of new youth leadership programs, like in rural settings or with middle school students. The creation and maintenance of more youth development programs in the carceral system, mental health and residential facilities, and countless others should be prioritized. By extension, funders should direct dollars toward proposals and programs directed by young leaders, and require youth-led program evaluation, like we did here, so that organizations can learn from each other.

Our YLPP model is a conceptual model of how youth sexual violence prevention programs advance social change. We believe strongly that youth-led programs have cascading impacts that benefit the whole community and influence systems-level changes. When youth-led projects are incorporated, expansive evaluation methods are needed to assess the extent to which the youth leaders transform other people and the settings implicated. For example, our evaluation of GameChangers, which focused primarily on members’ experiences disallow us from speaking to how members’ public facing projects impact the attitudes and behaviors of other youth and adults. To understand more fully the scope of impact of youth-led initiatives, collaborative and participatory researchers and practitioners should dialogue with other youth, parents, educators, school administrators, and policymakers who are not only exposed to young people’s activism and advocacy efforts, but who wish to partner with youth to advance a future free of violence.

9. Conclusions

Youth led projects have a capacity for change that is different from many organizational prevention programs, creating a butterfly effect on multiple societal levels. Through member education and empowerment, GameChangers bring what they have learned into spaces across the county and engage with key stakeholders to foster positive structural change. Through their projects, they can reach the broader community and call individuals to action regardless of the work they engage in. Social change requires youth at the forefront, and community-based programs like GameChangers can show the field how it is done.

“GameChangers literally changed my whole mind and direction of my life. I realized that I just wanted to continue activism and helping our underserved communities”.

—Aspen