Promoting youth participation
Young people have plenty to offer, once you get them involved. But how do you get them in the door and contributing to your organisation in a meaningful way?
Submitted
10/28/2009
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actnow
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Updated
12/2/2009
Photographer : kieradocherty @ flickr
Young people have opinions, and they’re keen to have them heard. More than that, they have a right to have them heard. And creating spaces for young people to make decisions and take action on what’s important to them can benefit your organization, your programs and your community along the way.
Why bother?
In the long run, getting youth involved in the decision making process will save you a heap of time by cutting out a good portion of the trial and error of youth work. You’ll be hearing what your target audience wants straight from the horse’s mouth. It’s this sort of feedback that’ll help you build more responsive and relevant programs.
By giving young people a chance to participate, you’re helping them develop their independence and resilience through a new set of skills and knowledge. You’re offering them a chance to gain important life skills which will help them positively contribute to society in the future.
And, as a welcome side effect of increasing your scope for youth participation, more young people will know about and use your services.
Doing Diversity
It’s important to realize that young people are a diverse group of people. The same involvement strategies won’t work for everyone. If you find your young recruits are lacking diversity, maybe your opportunities for involvement are too.
Young people can be involved in as much of a program’s development as you let them. You have a whole organisation for young people to explore, get creative with your opportunities. There’s the prospect of taking on young people as project partners or interns, on selection panels for new staff, or as program evaluators. Invite young people to consider new program development or funding applications, and to represent your organisation as ambassadors or spokespeople.
Good participation doesn’t stop at the end of a good brainstorm. Mobilise young people’s passion for their ideas and get them involved in implementing and evaluating the ideas they’ve talked about. Try to provide feedback on their ideas – what was used, what wasn’t and why.
Doing it in practice
Say goodbye to the idea of youth participation as something you ‘do.’ Meaningfully involving young people is an approach to your work.
Remember, youth participation isn’t something you can make happen on your own. At some point, you’ll need to hand over the reins to young people, and the sooner you do it the better. Your role as an organisation is to create opportunities for involvement and guide young people through them. You can’t force people to take part, but you can create opportunities and an environment where they’re more likely to do so.
Open up the spaces in which young people can interact with you, rather than limiting them (and yourself) to only working with the ‘right type’ of young person, or only at a certain time in a certain area of the organisation. If it looks anything like token involvement, forget it. Advocate your organisation as one which will work with youth in partnership instead of using a top down approach.
When it comes to proving that participating is worth young people’s time, actions speak louder than words. There’s nothing more inspiring than seeing your own ideas come to fruition. Let young people stay in control of their ideas, and give credit when it’s due.
For organisations looking to start a little smaller, try getting young people to connect with you through technology. Use online spaces like social networking sites, forums and photo or comment pages to get yourself started and plug into what young people are interested in. It’ll help link up your members with one another and get people involved who may be regionally dispersed. They’re also an easy way to continue informal relationships created at workshops or during program activities.
Last but not least, if your youth participation strategies aren’t working, find out why. If you want to know what young people are thinking, ask.
This work is licenced under an Attribution licence.
© 2008. First published on actnow.com.au
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