Get ready to make room for one more podcast in your rotation.
The Orange County Youth Council, administered by OCDE, is launching its “Keep in Mind” podcast — a student-led series that explores substance use prevention and other health topics that impact student well-being and academic performance. The podcast’s first episode drops April 25, with new episodes released weekly each Friday through May 30.
The podcast draws much of its content from the 2021-23 California Healthy Kids Survey – Orange County Report. Before recording, OCYC students sifted through the dense survey data, searching for topics that stood out or raised questions.
Any insights or concerns they uncovered helped shape the content of each episode, where student hosts explore these topics with OCDE staff members who specialize in the related areas.
“This was our first try with the podcast, and everything went great,” said Elke Petras, OCDE’s coordinator for Youth Development Programs. “The OCYC members did a fantastic job researching their topics and developing the content. They had such a positive experience that we are already talking about topics for next season.”
The youth council, or OCYC, is a subgroup under the Orange County Friday Night Live Partnership, which shares a similar mission of engaging students in prevention activities and service projects. OCYC consists of high school students who are actively involved in their schools’ Friday Night Live chapters and want to take their involvement to the next level.
This year, 23 students representing 14 Orange County schools were selected to join OCYC — the largest group in the program’s history. Some of their main responsibilities include providing guidance and a student perspective on substance use prevention and mental health promotion — a central theme of the podcast and strong draw for the students leading its development.
“I wanted to be part of the launch of the OCYC podcast because I believe it’s important to spread health awareness with different methods,” said Lucas Hsieh of Beckman High School in the Tustin Unified School District. “I wanted to be able to share my voice in a way that could reach everybody.”
OCYC will look to curate content for a second season of the podcast in the near future.