Boise Preparing for 2025 Youth Survey
- Megan Smith
- Oct 6
- 3 min read
It’s officially October and that means it’s time to start thinking about the next round of Boise's youth data collection with the Idaho Youth Well-being Survey!
This survey, offered in partnership with Communities for Youth, is an important part of our community’s upstream prevention work around youth well-being. Survey results help Boise partners make informed decisions about how to support our young people and also help us measure how well our current prevention efforts are working. If you haven’t heard much about the survey or the Communities for Youth Boise Initiative, please look through our data results from last year and look through some of the examples of how the data has been used in Boise.
We are currently preparing for Year 4 of the survey here in Boise and we are aiming for a participation rate of at least 65% among Boise’s middle and high school students to ensure our data is as useful as possible. That means we need as many Boise parents as possible to give permission for their child (ren) to participate.
Key information is provided below.
2025-2026 Boise Youth Well-being Survey Parent Info:
Survey will be offered to middle/ jr. high and high school students in early November.
To give you child permission to participate, please ensure you have provided permission/consent.
If your child attends Boise schools: you can email Jason Shanks at jason.shanks@boiseschools.org to check on your permission/consent status.
If your child attends a school in Boise that is outside of the Boise School District, contact your school leader.
Please note, students can still choose not to participate even if their parents have provided consent.
General Youth Well-being Survey Parent Info:
In accordance with Idaho law, youth participation requires parent permission (consent).
All surveys are 100% anonymous, no identifying information will be collected, and it is not possible to tie any answers provided to any individual student. All data is collected using a highly secure online system.
For the vast majority of teens, asking about “risky” behaviors (e.g., using/misusing substances like alcohol or tobacco, dating activity) does not persuade them to engage in those behaviors.
Prior research has shown that the vast majority of teens do not intentionally lie about behavior or make-up answers when taking surveys like the Idaho Youth Well-being Survey.
Questions on the Idaho Youth Well-being Survey have been purposefully worded in ways that minimize feelings of discomfort or stress. Any question that a young person does find distressing they are encouraged to skip.
If you have already provided consent for your child:
Thank you for your support of Boise’s upstream prevention initiatives! Please help us spread the word to other parents about the importance of the survey for Boise’s young people. Some parents simply forget to provide consent, while others may not read through all the details and think the survey is just something “extra” their child doesn’t need to take part in. There are also some survey-related myths that other parents/guardians may be concerned about that you can use the General Youth Well-being Survey Parent Info handout to address.
We encourage you to speak with your child about the survey. Key points include:
The survey helps school leaders and others create a more youth-friendly community.
Nobody is required to take the survey or to answer all the questions once they have started.
All surveys are 100% anonymous and cannot be used for any kind of disciplinary purpose (getting someone in trouble).
You can utilize our youth video on the survey to help with these conversations!
If you would like to get involved in the current work of the Communities for Youth Boise Initiative, please contact Community Lead Heather Allan at HAllan@cdh.idaho.gov.
For more information on the Communities for Youth Boise Initiative, please visit our main page or sign up for our newsletter.
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