'Participation - Making it Effective'

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'Participation - Making it Effective' June 04

The fifth national Participation Workers Seminar for England was held in Newcastle on June 29th 2004.

The first part of the participation workers event was designed specifically to encourage participation workers to network and make links with participation workers from different parts of the country. This was achieved by compere, Tony Dallas, firstly getting delegates to push their chairs back and take part in some interactive warm up activities.

After this, delegates were put into groups by asking them to find other delegates with the same coloured card and to piece together a jigsaw puzzle. In their groups, they were asked to think of a building that they thought most described their work and to draw a participation landscape, based on those buildings. Here are just some of the creative ideas participation workers came up with.

A mismatching building
At the beginning I was just a simple building, one or two rooms maybe. But over time, generations of occupants changed the shape and added extensions according to their needs. I might look odd, maybe a bit out of proportion, but it feels right and works out! Not just planned, not designed, but organically grown over time.
by Mini

A Tent
I believe that I am tied to my work and the principles of it (like tents to camping) but not to the specific location that I do the work in. There are many, many places I could go to do this work and many, many people I could meet! As a worker I should not stand and be noticed over my group – in fact the opposite is true! Tents are flexible and reliable, like me (I hope). Camping is a fun adventure and hopefully so is the work that I help with. Everyone is equal when camping – no frills.
by Michael from Sunderland

My Building
If I were a building I would be a shop unit like in Mr Ben. I would be a community resource where people could try new things/projects and chill out, make new friends and get involved. I would have refreshments, comfy chairs and music, a small garden and be open long hours.
by Cherry

The Lighthouse
If I were a building I would be a lighthouse to facilitate young people to where they would like to go and to be. I would guide, but not direct. I would illuminate but not over-shadow, and I would warn of dangers at certain times of the day.
by Karen

Multi-storey
I would be a multi-storey block of flats – why? Cos it has lots of levels – lots of aspects and many sides, all different. This would truly reflect my role as a participation worker – which is multi-faceted – covers lots of aspects and operates on many different levels.

The groups were then asked to discuss what makes a good participation worker. There were ten groups in total, below is a list of the most common descriptions. These adjectives appeared in nearly all the groups, in varying orders of importance.

Honest
Fun
Good Communicator
Good Listener
Persistent
Committed to changing things
Always feeds back
Advocates/risk taker
Wants young people to take the lead
Strategic thinker

In the afternoon, delegates were split into workshop groups for more practical and deeper thinking about the issues. Below are the descriptions of the different workshops.

Workshop Descriptions:

The Impact of Participation, Harry Wade, National Youth Agency
The NYA is quite interested in mapping participation activity, but we are really interested in mapping the IMPACT of participation. What’s the point of children and young people’s participation if it doesn’t lead to change? This workshop aimed to help you to participate in using the Hear by Right Impact of Change template and change the way you measure your local participation.

Making Participation Effective, Andy Fleming, Barnsley Youth Services
Barnsley has made significant progress in capacity building and ensuring structures are in place in order to implement and monitor change in decision making processes. This workshop aimed to enable you to work in groups to share practice and identify key points of learning to ensure participation is meaningful.

Managing Resistance, Marc Rothera, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Connexions
This workshop was aimed at both new and experienced practitioners who are interested in the broader implications and scope of the participation agenda and its links with citizenship, youth work and grass roots. It offered a way of understanding IYP rather than as a lesson in how to do it and made no claims as to being ‘the right way’ to do, or understand, IYP it is simply a working perspective. You will be given a tool to help identify concentrations of power within your organisation and be encouraged to talk about your ideas on how to get this power dispersed to young people.

Intercultural Participation, led by the young people of Theatre PIE and Samantha Jones.
Following the review of youth work with BME groups in Newcastle, Theatre PIE was invited to lead a programme of specialised interactive educational workshops that will encourage an exchange of ideas, opinions and experience amongst culturally mixed groups. This workshop helped to encourage participation, both socially and educationally, amongst a range of young people. Through drama, young people are encouraged to explore their commonalities and differences, and how to overcome barriers to participating.

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.

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.