About Us – ASPEN Wellbeing

The History

The Well-Being surveys and toolkits were developed through deep collaboration between young people and adult allies from communities and organizations across the United States and Canada, with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. At the heart of this work is a simple but powerful belief: young people are experts in their own lives.

How do culture, values, and circumstances nurture well-being for youth and young adults?

Too often, questions about youth well-being are defined and answered by adults, without the meaningful leadership of young people themselves. This limits youth agency and shapes solutions that miss what truly matters. Guided by the principle “Nothing about us without us,” this initiative set out to flip that dynamic—centering youth leadership, voice, and lived experience at every stage.

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Nothing about us without us.

Defining Well-Being Together

The Youth and Young Adult Well-Being Project brought together young people, adult allies, and research mentors from across the U.S. and Canada to define, collect, and analyze data on well-being—using that knowledge to develop surveys grounded in their cultural contexts.

Three cultural affinity groups were formed:

American Indian / Alaska Native (AIAN) Well-Being:
Developed in partnership with Indigenous youth and adult allies across the U.S. and Canada, the AIAN survey defines well-being through Indigenous identity, connection to land, subsistence living, nature, and traditional practices often overlooked in conventional measures. Insights from 72 young adults (ages 18–26) shaped the tool.
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Black Expressions of Well-Being
Created through interviews with Black youth and young adults across the diaspora— including African American, Puerto Rican, Haitian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Afro-Colombian communities—the survey centers lived experience and explores how cultural identity, relationships, spirituality, and collective care shape well-being.
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Latine Bienestar
Co-created by an intergenerational collective of Latine youth and adult allies across the U.S., this survey centers humanity, belonging, joy, and lived experience—honoring both challenges and the connections that help Latine youth thrive.
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Over 18 months, each group engaged in youth-led participatory research, grounded in cultural knowledge, storytelling, and lived experience. By bringing community wisdom into conversation with Western research, participants uplifted joy, resilience, and strength—shaping surveys that reflect how young people understand and experience well-being in their communities.

The work was coordinated by Fresh Tracks at the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions (AFCS) in partnership with a national community of organizations supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

From Surveys to Toolkits: Mapping Constellations of Well-Being

This work continues through The Well-Being Implementation Project: Mapping Constellations of Well-Being. Building on the original initiative and working with many of the same members. This phase focuses on advancing the tools with conversation guides, implementation Toolkits, and relational practices that help organizations engage well-being as something lived and shared—not extracted.

Our Approach: Conversation as Practice

Early pilot sessions with —such as those with youth in the Working the Gap Project at CUNY—showed that when tools are used in small groups with dialogue and art, they open space for reflection, storytelling, and connection. Young people felt more seen, more creative, and more willing to explore difficult questions.

This approach:

Engages young people more deeply
Builds trust and belonging
Deepens understanding beyond data points
Affirms youth as knowledge producers
Cultivates shared accountability between youth and adults

By centering relationship-building over data extraction, this work reflects a commitment to accompaniment, participation, and cultural humility—and to well-being as a collective practice.

Contributors

This work is made possible by a collaboration between AFCS, the Center for Indigenous Health at Johns Hopkins University, the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health at Colorado School of Public Health, CUNY School of Professional Studies Youth Studies Programs, Fresh Tracks, Hello Insight, Intergenerational Change Initiative, LBC Action, National Recreation Foundation, Native Americans in Philanthropy, Network for the Development of Children of African Descent, REI Cooperative Action Fund, Treeline Foundation, Tides Foundation, Andrus Family Fund, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the leadership of young diverse leaders rooted in community action and the healing power of the outdoors.

Funding for this project is provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private philanthropy that creates a brighter future for the nation’s children and youth by developing solutions to strengthen families, build paths to economic opportunity, and transform struggling communities into safer and healthier places to live, work and grow. Learn more at aecf.org.

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Partnership

We understand wellbeing as collective, contextual, and relational—shaped by relationships, organizational culture, and broader systems. That’s why our work extends beyond tools to include facilitation and implementation support that helps partners engage wellbeing work with care, intention, and accountability.

Through participatory, healing-centered facilitation, we create reflective spaces for youth and adults to explore wellbeing, belonging, and care. Our implementation support guides partners from insight to action—integrating tools into existing programs and adapting them to local contexts. Nonextractive learning and accompaniment ground every step.