Pathways for Youth Development and Leadership

The Pittsburgh Study’s commitment to child thriving is central to our relationship-building and collaboration across organizations, schools, and institutions. We are proud to partner with many groups in our region to help provide tangible opportunities for young people to become personally engaged and connected with this work and each other.

With an equity-first focus, our goal is to support all youth, amplify their voices, and to help connect them to resources and experiences that will strengthen their self-confidence and leadership skills.

Creating Change Agents: Youth Leadership & Activism

We invite you to join us in our collective effort to increase opportunities for young people throughout the region. Creating Change Agents: Youth Leadership and Activism is a growing collaboration between the Allegheny Intermediate Unit (AIU), LIGHT Education Initiative, Penn State Greater Allegheny, Woodland Hills School District, 4-H, and The Pittsburgh Study, all working together to create broader opportunities for youth to thrive.

“This is an extraordinary chance for high school students to join the movement to Eradicate Hate.”

-Dr. Robert Scherrer, Executive Director of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit

The initiative aims to create the scaffolding for shared curriculum and resources in association with regional youth summits and advocacy activities. Reimagining how young people work together, the approach is intended to reach a larger, more inclusive audience by purposefully establishing wider access for youth to gain leadership and advocacy skills as agents of change and active stewards of their futures and the futures of the communities where they live. By linking individual events and programs, this plan creates a curated path of opportunities, enabling youth to remain active throughout the school year. Through this ongoing connection, continuous conversation, and purposeful union of young people from urban, suburban, and rural areas, a dedicated space will emerge for a new network of outstanding, and outspoken, young leaders.

“This collaboration will enhance the Woodland Hills Summit by deeply integrating a multidisciplinary approach to mental health literacy and civic engagement. It will empower participants with the tools to support themselves and their communities and foster long-term well-being and youth thriving. By promoting trauma-informed care and reducing mental health stigma, the summit will create a supportive and inclusive environment where youth feel safe to explore these topics” Erin Wall, Co-Founder of the multi-district summit and Woodland Hills English teacher shares.

“In this collaboration, we have all the right ingredients to integrate opportunities and systems. We know about the critical importance of breaking down systemic racism and perpetual structural barriers for youth thriving. And, with shared metrics that focus on youth thriving as the primary outcome, we know that we can all row in the same boat to the same goals,” explains Dr. Liz Miller, MD, PhD, Co-Lead of The Pittsburgh Study.

Engage Your Students and Help Build the Path to Their Personal Success

The youth summits below offer a variety of activities for students including leading and participating in small group discussions, creating and implementing large-scale projects, and sharing their accomplishments in public presentations. These opportunities are open to all schools and organizations that are working towards positive outcomes in the areas of influencing youth attitudes and skills, increasing future orientation, and expanding youth participation in civic engagement. Connect your student the contact and registration information listed for each.

Eradicate Hate Global Summit: Student Summit
October 22, 2024

Created in response to the 10.27.2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting at the Tree of Life – the deadliest act of antisemitism in American history – the Eradicate Hate Global Summit stands as the most comprehensive anti-hate conference in the world. Local student leaders from Southwestern PA high schools are invited to attend and participate. The goal of the Eradicate Hate student summit is to bring students together in collaboration, not competition, so they become inspired, prepared, and empowered to help their local schools and communities counter all forms of identity-based hate.

The Allegheny Intermediate Unit coordinates and facilitates the student summit each fall within the larger Eradicate Hate Global Summit at the Pittsburgh Convention Center. This summit intersects with the AIU’s mission to advocate and advance equitable opportunities for all learners, leveraging educational partnerships and connecting educators and students across the region to one another. Each participating school receives funding from The Grable Foundation to help support anti-hate projects that students plan and implement in their school communities. The LIGHT Education Initiative (of the new Tree of Life nonprofit organization), the 10.27 Healing Partnership (including REACH – the 10.27 speaker’s bureau of survivors and victims’ family members), and Film Pittsburgh’s “Teen Screen” program have partnered with Not In Our Town (a California-based documentary filmmaking company and anti-hate organization) to offer a wide range of support and opportunities for participating schools.
AIU invites Superintendents and Administrators from school districts in Southwestern PA to nominate students from their areas to participate in this incredible event. Each high school is eligible to bring a group of ten student leaders. Free for participating schools, including lunch. Schools are responsible for their own transportation.

Contact Nick Haberman for more information – nicholas.haberman@aiu3.net

The 6th Annual Woodland Hills Multi-District Student Summit in Partnership with The Hear Foundation
March 14, 2025 Penn State Greater Allegheny Campus

The Woodland Hills Student Summit focuses on bringing together students from urban, suburban, and rural school districts to focus on unity in a period of division. It is vital to our Summit that we have students from urban, rural, and suburban communities. Giving students not only a voice but the ability to interact with children who have diverse cultural, social, and environmental experiences is pivotal to the project. Through their words and actions, we can initiate change in a culturally divided society.

The summit is a year-round program for student leaders to engage in four events. The first two are planning sessions in the fall and the winter. The third is through a presentation at the summit and the final component is student a celebration event in the spring. Addressing a broad range of issues that are important and relevant to the youth today will broaden this year’s summit appeal with the goal of engaging a diverse group of students and empowering them to take part in shaping their future. The summit will evolve to create a more inclusive future for all youth.

Woodland Hills School District Summit Topics

Mental Health	Racial and Social Equity	Social Media Influence
Human Rights LGTBQA+	Voting and Democracy	Creating Positive Change
Ready For Work	Trauma Informed Care	Cops and Corners
Bridging the Badge	Refs and Rooks	Athlete’s Mental Health and Responsibilities

The sixth annual Multi-District Student Summit is March 14, 2025, at Penn State Greater Allegheny. The program will run from 9:00AM-1:30 PM with student participants rotating through three of the topic sessions. There is no cost for attending. Registration details will be coming closer to the event.

Contact Ms. Erin Wall, waller@whsd.us, or Mr. Matthew Crutchman, msc205@psu.edu, for more details.

The Pittsburgh Study Youth Thriving Summit

Save the Date, Friday, April 25, 2025

The Pittsburgh Study, a collective impact initiative to promote child thriving and racial equity, centers our community’s voices and provides a healing-centered, trauma-informed approach in its work with adolescents and the community. The Pittsburgh Study’s Youth Thriving Summit is a youth-led event intended to showcase the range of youth leadership activities and accomplishments from across the region, to bring together youth encouraging stronger networks, and to build collective impact as a culminating event that brings together multiple youth groups from schools and neighborhoods throughout the area.

High schools and teen organizations are invited to join us for this FREE field trip event! Engage your students in meaningful discussions, peer support, and personal empowerment and help them in navigating the critical issues and the challenges they face daily. With youth facilitators nurturing the discussions, it’s our goal to provide the space and environment for young people to share, learn, and collaborate on a peer-to-peer basis.

Opportunities are also available for young people to participate on the summit planning committee. We’re asking for your help in recruiting and connecting with the youth leaders in your schools, organizations, and neighborhoods. Responsibilities include a weekly virtual meeting (for which students will be compensated) and attending the summit. If you know of a young person looking for a leadership opportunity, please reach out to Nikki Saur, saurnt@upmc.edu or Dr. Liz Miller, elizabeth.miller@chp.edu.

Ongoing Opportunities for Engaging Youth

LIGHT Education Initiative is a K-12 youth-led, humanitarian-centered education initiative built on a foundation of Holocaust remembrance with a mission to inspire, prepare, and empower the next generation of humanitarians. Contact Nick Haberman for details on how to get involved, nicholas.haberman@aiu3.net.

The Pittsburgh Study offers additional tools for Youth Leadership Activities and Skills Building. To learn more, contact Dr. Liz Miller, elizabeth.miller@chp.edu.

Youth Leadership in Action This curriculum includes up to eight two-hour sessions on skill-building for youth participating in action research.

Creating Peace is a curriculum focused on strengthening the skills of young leaders who want to play an active role in racial and gender justice. It’s delivered through twelve two-hour sessions.

Youth Research Advisory Board Youth who participate as members of the Advisory Board are paid to advise investigators and scientists on conducting research with adolescents. Involvement includes attending monthly meetings and events.

Youth Data Literacy Program This hands-on, immersive curriculum focuses on critical thinking and analysis by building a competency for how to understand, use, interpret, and translate data. This curriculum is delivered over six two-hour sessions.