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The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to evaluate the effects of two farm-to-school programs, specifically the Field-to-Fork Multi-visit Program (N = 264) and the Field-to-Fork After-school Club (N = 56), on nutritional outcomes of elementary school students (third to fifth grade) from urban, diverse, and lower-income communities. Data were collected via self-report surveys measuring: (a) knowledge of recommendations for daily fruit and vegetable intake; (b) fruit and vegetable consumption; (c) knowledge of cooking a healthy recipe using vegetables; and (d) desire for farm fresh foods at school. Statistical analyses included McNemar's and Wilcoxon signed rank tests. The proportion of students knowing how to cook a vegetable rich recipe increased with both programs (Multi-visit Program p < 0.001; After-school Club p = 0.002). Vegetable consumption increased with the After-school Club (p = 0.002). Farm-to-school programming can increase knowledge of cooking vegetable rich recipes and vegetable intake among elementary school students from diverse, urban, and lower-income communities.

Background and Objectives: Community-based organizations, such as Food Literacy Project, Inc. (FLP), focused on cultivating food justice through increasing access to healthy foods in under-resourced areas are uniquely positioned to positively affect the nutrition landscape. This article reports on an evaluation of FLP's efforts in implementing food justice programming. Methods: A single, longitudinal case study evaluation framed within the socioecological model included the collection of survey, interview and focus group, on-site observational and field notes data at multiple points throughout the evaluation period of July 2019 through August 2020. Results: Research findings lauded FLP's initiatives providing food access, creating youth advocacy programming, and fostering community connections. However, critical need existed to implement initiatives by individuals who reflected the communities in which they served on land that was fully secured for tenure and ownership. Conclusions: The results from this evaluation suggest a call to action for non-profit organizations to build and maintain trust in under-resourced communities. When applying for grants, partnering with academic institutions and implementing programming, the site team members, as well as evaluation team members, should be intentional to identify (eg, race, gender, residence, socioeconomic status, education level) with the community in which the initiatives aim to serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth development programs offer flexible environments for healing and positive identity development for youth facing discrimination and oppression. Programs often occur in out-of-school time (OST), a context that is clearly positioned in tandem with the education system to create complex relationships that lead to challenges in OST spaces. Youth development programs occurring in OST settings have the potential for resisting or replicating oppressive practices toward youth occurring in the education system. This article highlights a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project within an OST program using photovoice, field trips, and arts-based strategies. Eleven youth participated in the project over the course of nine months. Thematic content analysis of weekly photovoice and critical consciousness resulted in a primary theme of peeling back the layers. This theme encompassed the evolution of youth understanding the interconnectedness between their individual-level experiences of racism and broader community and systems-level inputs. This article describes critical consciousness development of OST youth participants through intentional engagement in critical dialogue, experiential field trips, and reflective art making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This constructivist grounded theory study used semi‐structured interviews with 19 youth service providers in community‐based youth development programmes to develop a context‐specific framework of how and why youth voice promotion occurred. Factors external to the youth programmes, such as funder expectations, influenced the conceptualization of role for youth workers. The social process of meaning making in relation to role identity impacted how youth workers perceived self‐efficacy when working with youth, especially when engaged with behaviours falling outside programmatic expectations or norms. Workers prioritized fostering physical and psychological safe spaces for youth participants. When conflict occurred, perceptions of efficacy guided workers in taking positions that either promoted or restricted youth voice based on their perceptions of efficacy in resolving conflict safely. Youth programmes have the capacity to resist or replicate oppression present within the educational system. The adoption and adaptation of educational models of resistance offer a strategy for community‐based youth organizations to promote equity and thriving youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With recent reports highlighting the dehumanization of Black girls, the authors attempt to deconstruct the relationship between the racialized gendered oppression they experience and their use of leisure to practice and perform resistance and agency using narrative ethnography. The reality of oppression in the lives of Black girls shows the complex ways dehumanization becomes part of the Black girlhood experience. As we look into the role of leisure within the complexities of Black girlhood, our epistemological views inform our understanding of how Black girls navigate, endure, and resist against multiple systems of oppression. Using Black feminist theory as a guide, this research study examined how one Black girl, Egypt, adopted the use of performance art to practice resistance and agency. The authors hope that future research will consider the oppression, agency, and resistance that exist within the lives of Black girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While people across the globe adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic, young people have been the center of many news stories. Millions of young people are required to stay home due to school closures, and adults are forced to consider alternative structures to support youths' needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed multiple injustices and forms of oppression experienced by the most vulnerable in our country, which includes young people experiencing poverty, incarceration, foster care, homelessness, and those with marginalized identities. This article will discuss the role of power and social control in the lives of youth during the COVID-19 pandemic and present strategies leisure researchers and practitioners can adopt to overcome the loss of critical support structures and mitigate exponential effects of COVID-19 on our most vulnerable youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]