At each Boise State home football game, the “Blue Turf Thinkers” series honors outstanding groups and initiatives on the world-renowned Blue Turf.
The Oct. 11 game’s honorees included faculty, staff and students representing Communities for Youth, an initiative of the School of Public and Population Health in the College of Health Sciences.
Communities for Youth utilizes a community-academic partnership model wherein they work alongside Idaho communities to build prevention efforts that improve youth mental health and well-being. The initiative focuses on upstream prevention, averting negative outcomes long before they occur, rather than reacting or responding to issues that have become severe. They achieve this through data-driven community engagement that focuses as many people as possible in a given community on addressing issues that are driving local youth well-being challenges.
Megan Smith, associate professor in the School of Public and Population Health, and colleagues founded the initiative in response to Idaho and national data, as well as listening sessions across Idaho, that showed the immense need for work in this area.
“We’re incredibly proud to be improving the lives and futures of Idaho’s young people alongside parents, local leaders, community members and youth themselves,” Smith said. “Our process is rooted in data and meeting the real needs of each local community we work in. We’re grateful for efforts that help us spread the word about upstream prevention.”
As of fall 2025, Communities for Youth works with more than 30 communities across Idaho to better understand and improve health and well-being for middle and high school students.
Their team of faculty, staff and students work with each community to implement a youth survey. Then, the team tailors their upstream prevention-related capacity building, training and technical assistance to the unique context of each community they work in. This can mean everything from creating professional development opportunities for teachers and school staff, to creating new youth or parent-focused programs and opportunities, to working with local business leaders around being “youth-friendly.”
The initiative also provides a variety of real-life training and community engagement opportunities for students from across Boise State and other colleges and universities in Idaho.
“The experience of working with Communities for Youth, first as a health studies undergrad, and now as a graduate student has given me such an appreciation for how different people can come from such different backgrounds, and experiences and histories, but still come together around the idea of building strong communities that recognize and support young people’s well-being,” said Heidi Jaerger, one of Communities for Youth’s graduate assistants and a Master of Public Health student. “This kind of training and experience is essential to someone like me who wants to help people from all walks of life.”
Communities for Youth invites anyone interested to learn more to visit their website, communitiesforyouth.org. Community inquiries about available services and support can email Communities for Youth’s Operations Director Meredith Spivak (MeredithSpivak@boisestate.edu).