Young people worldwide disproportionately experience health impacts from the climate and biodiversity crises, including higher rates of distress and hopelessness about their futures. Despite this growing evidence, limited targeted interventions exist to support youth with climate distress. Research has shown that fostering hope and collective action can improve well-being by building community, purpose, and resilience. This photovoice exhibit displays the visual narratives of youth in Ontario living with climate distress from a participatory study that co-adapted an Active Hope intervention (Macy & Johnstone, 2022) with and for youth. Active Hope supports participants in acknowledging distress, cultivating interconnectedness, reframing perspectives, and identifying meaningful ways of moving forward individually and collectively. Youth captured photos and wrote captions responding to each component, then collectively interpreted them through virtual gallery discussions, refining adaptations and sharing impacts on their climate distress experiences. Findings reveal that Active Hope principles support youth to navigate climate distress by fostering interconnections between peers and with the more-than-human world, holding spaces for collective grief and hope, and promoting agency for collective action while centering wellness. These results establish a foundation for theory of change development, feasibility testing, and evidence generation to support implementation and scale-up across youth services.
Swelen Andari, Curator & Study Lead
Swelen Andari is the Director Strategy, Climate Resilience & Youth Mental Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). They are implementing a demonstration initiative aimed at advancing research on climate distress, climate action, and hope for youth. Swelen is also supporting the development of plans to integrate climate adaptation and mitigation solutions within CAMH to advance mental health in the face of climate change. Trained as a Creative Arts Therapist, Swelen has a decade of experience leading the implementation of system-level initiatives aimed at improving access, service design, prevention, and building leadership for youth with lived experience in the child and youth mental health system in Ontario. Some of these initiatives include managing the provincial implementation of YWHO, Peer Positive, and Early Steps to Success in Etobicoke.
Swelen’s career has focused on moving research into viable action by facilitating processes grounded in implementation science, systems thinking, innovation, decolonial practices, and equitable community engagement. For the last five years, she has also been part of multiple local and national climate justice organizing efforts through Climate Justice Toronto, 350’s Our Time Campaign, and co-designing a social movement organization aimed at winning real climate solutions by securing good work and dignified lives for all.
Jordan Donovan, Co-Curator & Research Coordinator
Jordan (she/her) is a Research Coordinator at Shkaabe Makwa, CAMH. She has over a decade of experience working alongside young people in community and healthcare settings, advocating for more accessible, inclusive, and youth-centered services. She has coordinated and co-designed youth-engaged participatory action research (PAR) focused on mental health, queerness, and social justice. She has played a key role in the co-development and implementation of the Active Hope program pilot. Outside of research, she co-chairs the CAMH 2SLGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group, where she works with other really (really) cool people to make CAMH a more inclusive, joyful place for all queer and trans staff.
Claire Perry, Youth Engagement Coordinator
Claire Perry is a Youth Engagement Coordinator at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health where she supports researchers, educators, and clinicians to ensure that research, services, and other initiatives are reflective of the experiences of youth living with mental health challenges. She is the Youth Engagement Lead for the Active Hope & Climate Action project. Claire is passionate about advocating for young people living with mental health challenges that are often overlooked, such as climate distress, to be represented, centered, and celebrated within lived experience engagement.