Strengthening Social Interactions and Constructing New Oral Health and Health Knowledge: The Co-design, Implementation and Evaluation of A Pedagogical Workshop Program with and for Homeless Young People

Abstract

Young homeless people make up nearly one-third of those experiencing homelessness. The need to provide an educative approach, to strengthen social interacting, and construct new knowledge to increase social inclusivity, is required. The aim of this qualitative exploration was to use critical consciousness as an educative tool, to co-design, implement, and evaluate a series of oral health and health pedagogical workshops to strengthen social engagement and to construct new health knowledge, with, and for, homeless young people and their service providers. An action research design permitted the simultaneous development, implementation, and evaluation of the pedagogical workshop program. A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), providing supported accommodation for young homeless people, acted as the partner organization. Thirteen young people and five staff members from this NGO participated and co-designed eight workshops. Qualitative data collection included unstructured post-intervention interviews together with verbatim quotes from the group discussions during the workshops and from the post-workshop questionnaires. The qualitative analysis was informed by content analysis to permit the emergence of key themes from the data. The two themes were: 1. ‘trust building and collective engaging’ and 2. ‘constructing knowledge and developing skills’. Theme 1 highlighted engagement with the service provider, illustrating the transformation of the young people’s relationships, strengthening of their social interacting, and enabling their critical reflexive thinking on sensitive issues present in the homelessness trajectory. Theme 2 illustrated the young people’s ability to share, lend, and encode their new health information and convert it into an understandable and useable form. This new comprehension permitted their behavior change and social interaction. These findings provide an approach to increase young people’s knowledge, health literacy, and strengthen their social interacting to support community action.

Characteristics of oral health literacy in Senegal: A cross-sectional study among women in the Department of Pikine

“… 34 Thus, frequent interaction with family, relatives, neighbors, colleagues and friends is a privileged means of sharing information and developing health knowledge, particularly in terms of care. 35 , 36 In Senegal, many women socially interact through associations or groups for solidarity, mutual aid, or the informal economy. Thus, these findings highly suggest promoting women’s networks in Senegal for health promotion purposes.…”

Promoting Inclusion Oral Health: Social Interventions to Reduce Oral Health Inequities

“…Returning to the framework of inclusion oral health [5], the papers by Beaton et al [11] and Rodriguez et al [12] on homelessness and Lambert [13] and Yuan [14] on undocumented migrants reflect the very essence of inclusion oral health. The requirement for mixed-methods research to include the voice of experts by experience in the research process is no clearer illustrated than in the papers of Beaton et al [11] and Rodriguez et al [12]. For Beaton et al [11] it is the importance of working alliances between service users, health-care professionals, and the Third Sector that are necessary for the successful implementation of community-based programs to promote oral health.…”

“…For Beaton et al [11] it is the importance of working alliances between service users, health-care professionals, and the Third Sector that are necessary for the successful implementation of community-based programs to promote oral health. For Rodriguez et al [12] it is the co-design and co-production of oral health and health promotion workshops, using Freire's [15] critical consciousness, that strengthens social interactions and knowledge transfer. By using oral health as a portal for knowledge development, the young people were able to voice their lived experiences of homelessness, and by doing so, they developed their life skills and their trust in others and strengthened their social interactions [12].…”

“…For Rodriguez et al [12] it is the co-design and co-production of oral health and health promotion workshops, using Freire's [15] critical consciousness, that strengthens social interactions and knowledge transfer. By using oral health as a portal for knowledge development, the young people were able to voice their lived experiences of homelessness, and by doing so, they developed their life skills and their trust in others and strengthened their social interactions [12].…”

Helping young people feel at home in Scotland: Building Collaborative and Integrated Services for Youth Homeless: a Reflexive Mapping Approach for Health and Social Care Integration

“…Art and cultural activities have been proven to be powerful for those working with young people. Previous experiences and positive feedback given by groups of vulnerable youth in Brazil Rodriguez, 2009 and2015 ) and Scotland (Rodriguez, et al 2019) told us that when in contact with a friendly atmosphere that uses music, arts and elements of different cultures, there is a positive impact. Not only for participants' engagement with the proposed theme but also for their continuous motivation to be part of the programme and increased capacity to express ideas and voice their opinions.…”