Increasing Youth Engagement With Community Arts Through a Youth‐Led, AI‐Supported Pathway

Young adults are increasingly experiencing mental health difficulties and elevated rates of loneliness, yet professional help‐seeking remain persistently low within this population. Social prescribing (SP)—a nonclinical approach that connects individuals to community‐based activities and support—offers a promising alternative, addressing mental, social and physical health challenges in a potentially less stigmatising way. Despite its potential, uptake among young people remains low, with existing SP pathways largely designed with older adults in mind. The aim in this two‐partproject was to co‐design a youth‐friendly digital tool that supports engagement with community‐based arts activities, and to pilot the acceptance of this tool for diverse young adults. In Study 1, a participatory co‐design approach was employed, comprising exploratory youth workshops ( n  = 24) and interviews with community leaders ( n  = 6), complemented by a larger‐scale youth survey ( n  = 269), to understand the needs, barriers and enablers to participation in community‐based arts activities for young adults (18–30 years). In Study 2, we used a strength‐based, positive youth development approach to translate the co‐design and survey outcomes from Study 1 into an AI‐powered conversational platform, consulting three youth co‐researchers throughout. The platform prototype (‘Connie’) was pilot evaluated for usability by a sample of diverse young adults ( n  = 22). Survey respondents showed strong interest in a digital discovery tool (84% agreement), with preferences for personalisation and ease of use. Five themes were identified across youth and community leaders’ qualitative data: trust and authenticity, reducing uncertainty, belonging and social confidence, inclusive participation and lowering barriers to engagement. Connie was rated highly by trial users across all usability/acceptability domains, with an average of 80% satisfaction. The findings provide support for the viability of a digital tool to support youth social arts prescribing. Findings suggest that personalised activity discovery can help reduce the uncertainty that prevents many young people from engaging with community‐based activities. Effectiveness was also supported by transparency about how AI was used, sensitivity to different levels of user social readiness, and inclusion of diverse stakeholders in the tool’s design. We hope this tool will serve as a valuable supplement to SP, for use by link workers, practitioners or young people themselves, alongside traditional SP approaches.