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Participation Works Home » About Participation » Online Tools » More online tools
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We can't possibly cover all the different onlines tools you could use to engage young people in decision making and influencing change. Below you can find quick summaries of just a few more tools you might like to consider.
It is important to think carefully about how different tools fit into your wider strategy for involving young people. Don't just choose a tool because it's one you've heard a lot about. Think carefully about how it helps you share the information, recruit the participants, gather the information, have the conversations, or see the transfer of power to young people that you are aiming for.
In this section:
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| Forums and discussion boards
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An online forum (sometimes called message boards) is a space where forum members can create and respond to discussion topics. Usually each response is displayed under the response before and all the responses are available to view on the internet (they can be limited to registered members of the forum only).
People and Participation have a detailed overview of using an online forum in consultation and participation projects in their methods database.
Most established website 'Content Management Systems' will have the capacity to run a forum, and many 'Social Networking Websites' include group forums.
People and Participation explain that:
Discussions on online forums can fill a variety of roles. They can be hosted by decision making organisations or independent organisations. Decision makers might for example present the various options they are considering for a decision and solicit comments about people’s preferences. Alternatively an online forum can be used to discuss an issue before concrete options have been developed to inform thinking. Discussion forums can also be used for more general conversations or as a tool for community self-organising.
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| Social Networks
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What are social networks?
Online social networks provide ways for their members to publish a personal profile either publicly, or to people on their ‘friends lists’.
Social networks will often let a member keep track of updates by people on their ‘friends list’.
Social networks have different key features, but many focus on finding and sharing photos, music and videos.
Many social networks include space for members to create online groups, hold discussions and publicise events.
Most social networks are accessed via websites, but increasingly they are becoming accessible by mobile phones, game consoles and other devices.
Social Networks for Participation
Social networks are diverse spaces which offer many different opportunities for interaction with young people.
Many youth projects are creating their own identities within Social Networking Sites - either as individual people, or by creating groups on the social network.
If a project is represented on a social network as an individual, with project members as their 'friends', then many social networks offer features to send status updates or questions to those project members on the friends list.
A group on a social network can provide a space for discussion on topics chosen by the project or the young people who are members of the group. These discussion spaces often need some form of facilitation to stay active and focussed.
Photos, details of event and news shared through social networks can often have discussion attached to them, providing ad-hoc spaces for gaining feedback.
Getting started
Each social networking space is different, and many are rapidly changing in terms of the features, privacy settings and tools they offer. By talking to the young people you work with to find out which social networking spaces they are using, and then trying those out with them, or as an individual member, you can identify ways in which particular social networking spaces could be used by your project.
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| Text messaging and mobile phones
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More and more mobile phones have internet access, and text messaging continues to be a key communication tool for young people.
How can phones be used in participation projects
There are many ways mobile phones can be used as a part of a participation project or to engage young people in influencing the ongoing development of a service of project. Just a few possibilities are outlined below.
Premium accounts with some online survey tools (including Survey Gizmo introduced in the Online Survey section) allow you to create surveys that can be easily completed on a mobile phone.
Many phones can download, watch and share video clips - and mobile video sharing site could be used to share any online video content you create.
The free mobile social networking tools Twitter can be used to send a free broadcast text message to a group of young people, and to bring together their replies in one page. The YOMO Practical Ideas for Participation Conference in 2007 used this to gather feedback throughout the event. This blog post has more details on how that happened and how the idea can be used by others.
Swarm Teams offer a commercial product for asking questions and receiving responses by text.
The Life Swap project uses camera phones linked to a website to build understanding between excluded young people and local authority decision makers.
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| E-democracy tools
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Over recent years a lot of attention has been paid to e-democracy and to ways the internet can be used to bring elected decision makers and citizens closer together.
Many of the tools that have been developed can be used by young people in campaigning for change on a local, national and international level.
E-democracy and campaigning tools
Write To Them allows anyone to enter their postcode and send a message to their elected representatives, from ward councillors to Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament.
”PledgeBank allows users to set up pledges and then encourages other people to sign up to them. A pledge is a statement of the form 'I will do something, if a certain number of people will help me do it'. The creator of the pledge then publicises their pledge and encourages people to sign up. Two outcomes are possible – either the pledge fails to get enough subscribers before it expires (in which case, we contact everyone and tell them 'better luck next time'), or, the better possibility, the pledge attracts enough people that they are all sent a message saying 'Well done—now get going!'” (From http://www.pledgebank.com/faq)
They Work For You allows anyone to find out what their elected representatives have been saying and voting for in Parliament. It can be a useful tool to find out what your local MP is saying about young people - and to find out the best way to approach them with issues that matter to you.
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| Online games and virtual worlds
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Online games and virtual worlds can be spaces where real conversations take place and where real decisions are made.
Second Life (and Teen Second Life for 13 - 17 year olds) is a massive interactive online virtual world where users can create their own virtual avatar (representation of themselves in the virtual world), explore different spaces and join in conversations with others. Second Life includes tools for buying virtual land and building virtual clubs or models or real-world spaces. A number of educators have explored holding classes in virtual worlds.
E-democracy consultancy Delib build online games designed to inform, educate and consult with young people. In a game there are rules, and their are consequences to actions that the player takes. Games are often a simplification of reality - and so a well designed game can be suitable for raising a topic (e.g. My Abodo on climate change) or consulting on a particular detailed issue. For example, budget simulator is a very simple game that could be used to inform a participatory budgeting process.
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 Blog Posts
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Participation Works for the Statutory Sector
Participation Works is the key hub for voluntary and community organisations wanting to build their capacity to involve young people in decision making and influencing change in their organisations.
But Participation Works is not only providing support for the voluntary and community sector. Across our online gateway you will find a wealth of resources, news stories and
training and development opportunities for statutory sector organisations.
This short tour will give you an overview of some of the things you will find.
Click next to proceed through the tour. You can exit the tour at any time.
About Participation - the rooms
The 'About Participation' section of the gateway is made up of thematic 'rooms' - each packed with useful information and links to resources on that theme.
To make it easy for you to locate resources which were developed in the statutory sector, or which apply across the statutory sector (for example, government policies) we have used this icon:
.
Resources which may have been developed in the voluntary sector, or which may be particularly relevant to both the statutory and voluntary sector are marked with this icon:
Putting Participation Into Context: Rights
Young people have right to be involved in decisions that affect them. In the rights section you can find out about these rights, and what they mean for government and statutory sector organisations.
Putting Participation Into Context: Policy
International agreement, UK law and government policy places requirements on statutory sector bodies to involve young people in decision making. In the policy section you can explore the legislative and policy foundations for youth participation.
Getting Started: Training Resources
Whether you are just getting started with young people’s participation, or you have established participation work that you want to build upon – good quality training and training resources can play an important role.
The training room includes details of training packages that are available and links to training providers and consultants who can support practical skills building and organisational change for the participation of children and young people.
Getting Started: Training
Participation Works also provides a wide range of training courses directly and through our partner organisations.
Training is free to voluntary sector organisations, and is available to statutory sector organisations for £85 per session.
Hear by Right workshops support organisations to explore the current level of young people’s participation in their work, and to create a sustainable plan for improving youth participation. Hear by Right also explores the importance of participation leading to real change for young people, and includes a focus on practical methods for recording and measuring change.
Ready Steady Change uses an interactive set of training tools to build participants skills and knowledge in increasing children and young people’s participation in decision-making. It approaches participation from a children’s rights framework.
Building a Culture of Participation explores how an organisation’s culture can be established and embedded to support children and young people’s active and meaningful participation within the organisational infrastructure.
Safeguarding in Youth Participation is a one day course that aims to provide delegates with a better insight into safeguarding issues when working with children and young people and on ways to improve and provide a safe environment for children and young people.
You can find a list of upcoming course dates and can book online through the training page.
Getting Into The Details: Resources
Participation Works have produced a wide range of practical How To Guides on participation, as well as a series of publications on young people’s rights and the state of youth participation in the UK.
All these guides are available as free downloads.
Getting Into The Details: Rooms
Participation Works thematic ‘rooms’ of content cover many of the practical issues that children’s trusts, local authorities, government departments and agencies and other statutory sector bodies will come across in building the participation of children and young people in their work.
The standards room focuses on how standards can be used to drive organisational change for young people’s participation.
The measuring change room provides practical tools for seeing what has changed as a result of young people’s involvement.
Participation online explores a range of practical methods for engaging with children and young people through the internet and multi-media methods.
Getting Into The Details: Resources Hub
The Participation Works resource hub is packed full of information and resources from Participation Works partners about how to involve children and young people.
You can search for case studies of participation projects, stories of change, examples of policy and practice, training resources and more.
Keeping Up To Date: News
The Participation Works news service includes regular updates on participation policy and practice.
You can subscribe to received news updates by e-mail and you can browse the extensive news archive to find out about the background of local and national government participation initiatives and action.
Get Networked: PWNE
The Participation Works Network for England is the place where you can find and network with other professionals working on the participation of children and young people.
Register free to access the PWNE member directory, and to get the fortnightly PWNE newsletter.
Once your registration has been approved you can let others know about what you are doing through your profile, and you can search for others with interests similar to your in the Full Member Directory.
The PWNE also has regional networks which run events and convene meetings for local knowledge sharing and learning.
Get More Support: Enquiry Line
Participation Works run a telephone enquiry line set up specially to help sign post you to the information you need.
You can give the enquiry line a call to talk through your needs and to help identify the resources, training and support most relevant to you.