50 A youthful approach to end-of-life care decision making and advance care planning

<h3>Aim</h3> Presented by our Young Ambassadors, we aim to share how Dying With Dignity Victoria’s (DWDV) Young Ambassadors (YA) program is successfully engaging young people from diverse communities with lived experience to educate, inform, and inspire others to take action in relation to end-of-life education and planning. <h3>Background</h3> Community engagement in end-of-life matters has historically targeted older audiences, but it’s everyone’s business. Many young people are ill-equipped to navigate end-of-life matters for themselves and others, and traditional engagement with this group has had limited success. <h3>Main Text</h3> DWDV’s YA program began in late 2023 with 4 members in Victoria, Australia. We now have 23 YAs, growing by over 200% in the last 6 months. The program‘s mission is to cultivate a new generation of advocates informed about end-of-life preparedness and decision-making in their communities, focusing on compassion, empathy, and dignity. Through personal experience, career development, and advocacy opportunities, YAs gain the tools to navigate end-of-life advocacy with confidence and resilience. In the last year, the YAs have been busy! They’ve participated in multiple radio interviews and POD Casts, lead engagement with politicians on end-of-life related topics, scripted and launched a widely-watched YA video, created youth-focused end-of-life related fact sheets, represented DWDV at local and international conferences, and initiated multiple YA training courses like ‘Unlocking the Power of Advocacy,’ ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying Q&amp;A,’ and ‘Media Training’, just to name a few. <h3>Unique Contribution</h3> By harnessing their zest, lived-experience, passion, unique insights and the power of technology (Linked-In, Facebook, Instagram, Podcasts and Zoom), these YA’s are able to transcend geographic boundaries (we have currently have YAs in Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia, and internationally we have YAs in 5 countries – Australia, Canada, Ireland, Iceland, Netherlands), reach diverse audiences (we have LGBTIQ+, married, single and widowed YAs 20–44 yrs). The YAs affect and catalyze meaningful system changes through transforming their lived experiences and youthful insights into customised social media campaigns and the production of bespoke resources targeted at younger audiences. <h3>Implications</h3> Older individuals engage with end-of-life education for different reasons than younger people. Engaging youth requires solutions driven by young people. DWDV’s YA program offers a scalable model for young people’s involvement in end-of-life education and planning, adaptable to different jurisdictions and driven by a growing global network.