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This article describes the social action component of the Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES!) project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through its community-based prevention research (CBPR) initiative. YES! is designed to promote problem-solving skills, social action, and civic participation among underserved elementary and middle school youth. The after-school program focuses on identifying and building youths' capacities and strengths as a means of ultimately decreasing rates of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use and other risky behaviors. The article discusses the conceptual models of risk and intervention and factors contributing to successful social action work, including group dynamics, intragroup leadership, facilitator skills, and school-community contexts. Attention is focused on how the nature of the projects themselves played a key role in determining the likelihood of experiencing success. Implications and recommendations for other youth-focused empowerment education projects are discussed, including the effective use of Photovoice in such projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES!) project is an afterschool empowerment program and research project for underserved early adolescents. Central to YES! is an empowerment intervention that provides early adolescents with opportunities for civic engagement with other youth around issues of shared concern in their schools and neighborhoods. This article specifically focuses on the use of Photovoice as a promising way to engage youth in social change as they take photos capturing strengths and issues in their environment and use these as the basis of critical dialogue and collective action plans. Adding to a growing body of information on using Photovoice, this article reports how early adolescents in the YES! afterschool program experienced the Photovoice process, moving from photography and writing to initiate group-designed social action projects. Recommendations are offered for others engaged in empowerment work with early adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]