Building a Better Future for Young People

As a high school student in Oklahoma, Bloomberg Fellow Lilly Bocquin worked as a peer educator, giving advice to her peers about healthy relationships and challenging the often unhealthy narratives pushed by pop culture.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bocquin began reflecting on her future. “I realized I wanted to make a shift and use my career to positively impact my community,” she recalls. Living in Texas at the time, she made the decision to move back to Oklahoma and dedicate herself to advancing sex education and public health.

Today, Bocquin serves as Director of Programs for Honestly: Youth Sexual Health, where she works with several organizations across the Oklahoma City metro area to improve adolescent health. 

In her position, Bocquin manages several responsibilities, from coordinating communication campaigns to facilitating trainings for youth-serving professionals to managing strategic partnerships that keep the collaboration moving forward. But her innovative spirit goes beyond organizational leadership.

One of Bocquin’s most exciting projects centers on a research project utilizing a tool called biograffs. Originally designed as a therapeutic storytelling technique, biograffs allow participants to share experiences visually through a physical representation of narratives. Bocquin quickly saw their potential as a qualitative research tool for talking about potentially sensitive topics. With support from the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, she developed a capstone project applying biograffs to collect and analyze feedback directly from Oklahoma youth. The results have been so compelling that Bocquin has been invited to present at multiple conferences. “Biograffs provide unique, qualitative data,” she explains. “They give youth a way to process their experiences while helping us better understand their needs.”

The approach is especially important in a state like Oklahoma, where sexual health education can be politically polarizing. Yet Bocquin points out that public opinion tells a different story. According to a recent Amber Integrated survey, 82% of Oklahomans support teaching all forms of birth control in schools, and 89% want students to learn about healthy relationships, consent, and STI prevention. “Living in Oklahoma and working in adolescent sexual health is an interesting paradox,” Bocquin says. “But the data shows Oklahomans support sex education, even if elected officials seem less supportive.

Bocquin credits the Bloomberg Fellowship with giving her the education, resources, and network to meet this moment in public health. “Without the fellowship, I wouldn’t have been able to go to grad school,” she says. “They connected me with passionate peers, the best of the best in my field, and gave me access to opportunities that make my work stronger every single day.”

To hear more from Lilly Bocquin and other public health leaders, tune in to the Bloomberg American Health Summit live on September 30 at 9:00 a.m. ET. Click here to learn more.