The EU Health Policy Platform webinar Beyond the Seat at the Table and More than a Checkbox: A Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Youth Engagement in NCD Prevention brought together young people, public health professionals, policymakers and civil society representatives to discuss what meaningful youth engagement in NCD prevention should look like in practice.
The discussion focused on how to move beyond simply inviting young people into conversations, towards genuinely working with them as partners in health governance, policymaking and prevention. Speakers shared examples from across Europe, including youth engagement at EU level, Young Forum Gastein, youth-led advocacy through the YOURAH Network and Youth Advocacy Committee, the Place Standard Tool for Youth, and approaches to meaningful youth participation in health governance.
Following the event, we spoke with Anastasiia Voloshyna and Filmon Yohannes, members of the JA PreventNCD Youth Advisory Group, to hear their reflections on the webinar, what meaningful youth engagement means to them, and how young people can help shape stronger prevention policies.
Moving beyond symbolic participation
What was your main takeaway from the webinar?
For Anastasiia Voloshyna, the main message was that meaningful youth engagement is not a one-off gesture, but a continuous practice.
“It only works when young people are involved consistently, from agenda-setting through to decisions and follow-up,” she says.
One example that stood out to her was the Place Standard Tool for Youth, which showed how participation becomes more meaningful when young people are given concrete ways to assess and shape the places they live in.
“Hearing examples like Young Forum Gastein and the YOURAH Network alongside it made clear that this is not theoretical,” she says. “It is already happening across Europe.”
Filmon Yohannes also left the webinar with a strong sense that the gap between the language of co-creation and the reality of many participation processes remains too wide.
“We keep talking about meaningful youth engagement, but most of what exists is still symbolic,” he says. “Young people are invited to react to decisions already made, not to shape them from the start.”
For him, the value of the webinar was that it named this challenge honestly.
“That honesty is where real progress starts,” he says.
What meaningful engagement looks like
What does meaningful youth engagement mean in practice?
For Anastasiia, meaningful youth engagement means that young people influence decisions, not only attend the meetings where decisions are discussed.
“It means being involved early, having access to the same information as everyone else, being paid or reimbursed for our time, and seeing how our input changed the outcome,” she says.
For her, the clearest test of genuine partnership is whether organisations close the feedback loop.
“Are young people told what happened to their contributions, or invited once and never updated?” she asks. “Tokenism asks us to react to finished plans. Partnership lets us help write them.”
Filmon also stresses that timing, power and representation matter.
“Meaningful engagement means young people are involved from the very first draft, not just consulted on a final text or invited to a session at the end,” he says.
He adds that youth engagement cannot be meaningful if young people have no real decision-making power, or if only the most connected young people are invited to participate.
“Without early involvement, real power and genuine representation, engagement is just optics,” he says.
Bringing youth perspectives into JA PreventNCD
You are both part of the JA PreventNCD Youth Advisory Group. What role does the group play in the project?
The JA PreventNCD Youth Advisory Group was launched in 2025 to bring youth perspectives into the Joint Action’s work on preventing cancer and other non-communicable diseases.
Anastasiia describes the group as more than a side initiative.
“Our role is to feed youth insight into the different work packages, connect them, and help coordinate the project’s Youth Chapter on NCD Prevention,” she says.
For a large European project like JA PreventNCD, which brings together more than 100 partners across 25 countries, she believes this matters because the policies being developed now will shape the health of younger generations for years to come.
“Meaningful engagement here means we are consulted on real decisions, not briefed after they are made,” she says.
Filmon describes the Youth Advisory Group as a bridge between young people’s lived experiences and the project’s research and policy work.
“Prevention strategies built without young people’s input will miss what actually shapes young people’s choices,” he says.
For him, meaningful engagement in JA PreventNCD means involving the Youth Advisory Group at the design stage of tools and strategies, not only during review or dissemination.
“It means our recommendations being tracked and responded to, not just received,” he says.
Why young people matter in prevention
Why is it important to involve young people in NCD prevention?
Anastasiia points out that many major NCD risk factors, including tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy food environments and physical inactivity, take root early in life.
“Prevention is fundamentally about young people’s present and future,” she says. “We live inside the environments these policies try to change: schools, social media, sport, nightlife, and the marketing aimed directly at us.”
This gives young people insight into what works in practice, and what does not.
“Young people also bring urgency and creativity,” Anastasiia adds. “We will carry the long-term consequences of today’s decisions, so it is only fair that we help shape them.”
Filmon stresses that young people should not be seen only as future patients.
“We are current stakeholders whose everyday environments, habits and social pressures are directly shaped by the policies being discussed,” he says.
Young people, he argues, can help reveal the gap between what policies assume and what life actually looks like.
“That lived experience is not always captured in datasets,” he says.
From consultation to co-decision
The webinar will contribute to the Joint Statement of the Thematic Network “Youth Chapter on NCD Prevention.” What message should be reflected in that statement?
Anastasiia would like the Joint Statement to make youth engagement a structural part of prevention, not an optional extra.
“That means concrete standards: involving young people from the start, resourcing our participation properly, and closing the feedback loop so we can see our impact,” she says.
If the statement could influence one thing about youth engagement in Europe, she would want it to shift the default approach.
“I would want it to move from inviting young people to comment to building decisions with them,” she says.
Filmon also wants the statement to move beyond aspiration and towards responsibility.
“The statement should commit to early and binding youth involvement,” he says. “Young people should be engaged from the drafting stage of policies and programmes, not only invited to respond once documents are near-final.”
He also wants the statement to include a clear commitment to reaching beyond activist networks, including young people from underserved communities, rural areas and groups facing multiple health inequities.
“A statement that only describes the aspiration without naming how and who is responsible will not move anything,” he says.
Partnership, not a checkbox
What message would you give to policymakers, public health organisations and project leaders about youth engagement?
Anastasiia’s message is direct.
“Do not engage us to prove that you did,” she says. “Engage us because our perspective makes your prevention work better. Give us real responsibility, the resources to use it, and honest feedback on what our input changed. Partnership, not a checkbox.”
Filmon also calls for a shift in how youth engagement is understood.
“Please stop treating youth engagement as a feature to be added and start treating it as a precondition for quality,” he says. “Prevention programmes that are designed without young people miss crucial knowledge, reach the wrong audiences, and waste public money.”
For him, serious youth engagement means decision-making authority, fair compensation and involvement from the beginning.
“A seat at the table is only meaningful if the table is set at the beginning of the meal, not after the menu has already been decided,” he says.
The webinar highlighted that meaningful youth engagement is not only about inviting young people into existing structures. It is about creating the conditions for genuine partnership. As JA PreventNCD continues its work on prevention across Europe, the reflections from the Youth Advisory Group underline an important message: youth engagement should not be treated as a symbolic exercise. It should be part of how healthier, fairer and more sustainable prevention policies are designed, implemented and evaluated.
