EuroHealthNet Country Exchange Visit: Social Participation and Youth Engagement for Better Health

Ljubljana, Slovenia 

Health systems worldwide are increasingly recognising the importance of social participation and youth engagement in shaping effective, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable health policies. Social participation empowers individuals, communities, and civil society by ensuring their voices are heard throughout the policy cycle and at all levels of governance. The EU’s growing commitment to participatory democracy is reflected in the appointment of its first Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture, and Sport, Glenn Micallef, as well as new initiatives like annual youth policy dialogues and a ‘youth check’ on key policies.

This shift aligns with efforts in health-promoting schools, where fostering student participation strengthens both individual wellbeing and broader public health outcomes. The EU Youth Strategy (2019-2027) further reinforces the importance of meaningful engagement, ensuring young people have the resources, capacity, and influence to shape policies. However, despite global commitments—including a 2024 WHO resolution to implement, strengthen, and sustain regular and meaningful social participation in decision-making processes for health—many countries still struggle to implement genuine social participation due to institutional, political, and structural barriers. 

This Country Exchange Visit, hosted by the Slovenian National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ), provides an opportunity for stakeholders to learn about developments in Slovenia, share experiences, and learn from good practices to improve our policies and strategies to better meet the diverse needs of different groups of people. More broadly, the two-day meeting will enable representatives of national and regional public health agencies from across Europe to: 

• Explore how to engage effectively with people, communities and civil society, and analyse tools and techniques to address them. 
• Facilitate knowledge exchange on good practices and barriers in social participation and youth engagement in health governance. 
• Identify innovative approaches and solutions to challenges for institutionalising (youth) participatory mechanisms (including pathways for funding social participation) and building a social participation platform in their country/reality. 
• Foster cross-country collaboration for strengthening community-driven initiatives and create impactful partnerships for health. 

Additionally, participants will have a chance to engage with youth, visit community level projects in Slovenia, and discuss strategies for collaboration between government and civil society. During the meeting, they will also explore European level policies, tools, and frameworks to support such efforts, with a on youth engagement in JA PreventNCD (the EU Joint Action Prevent Non-Communicable Diseases). 

Practical details:

• EuroHealthNet Country Exchange Visits are member-only events that are open to senior delegates. In the case of this visit, junior colleagues from partnering organisations are also welcome.
• Please note that all participants will be required to invest some time in preparing for the event, for example, by presenting information from their country. 
• Country Exchange Visits are held in English. Unfortunately, no interpretation service will be available. Due to the interactive nature of Country Exchange Visits, it is therefore advised that the representative attending feels comfortable exchanging information in English. 
• Participants should arrive on Monday, 2 June 2025, as the programme will start on Tuesday 3 June at 9:00 CEST, and are kindly requested to stay until the end of the Country Exchange Visit, on Wednesday, 4 June 2025 at 15:30 CEST. 
• EuroHealthNet can fund the participation (travel and accommodation) of a limited number of members. EuroHealthNet will contact you with confirmation if you can attend on a funded basis. Additional self-funded spots may be available upon request. 
• The draft agenda will be available soon. 

To express your interest to participate, please apply by filling this form. 

If you have any questions, please contact Lina Papartyte at the EuroHealthNet Office.