Participation Works

A report on youth participation has been published by Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) and Changemakers.

The report, Youth Participation Growing Up? explores forms of youth representation looking at youth initiatives adopted by local authorities.

Key findings from the report include that the most popular youth participation opportunities are youth councils and the youth parliament and other popular opportunities listed included youth boards and advisory panels, including a panel for the Youth Opportunity Fund. The most popular methods of advertising these opportunities are through schools and colleges, youth clubs and centres and the use of local authority websites was also very popular. The report also found that most local authorities did not use social networking sites as a method of marketing opportunities to young people. The report found that the majority of local authorities (91 percent)  provided training for youth representatives however a small minority provided no training at all. The report argues that the provision of full training and support is key to the impact of youth representation as for many young people interested in getting involved acquiring new skills and personal development are significant factors that motivate them.

The specific issues that young people were consulted on included the Children and Young People’s Plan, leisure activities, health, including sexual health, drug and alcohol misuse, and teenage pregnancy, the environment, including green spaces and recycling community safety, including bullying and policing. 54 per cent of LAs consulted young people on a monthly basis and 22 per cent consulted with young people only annually. The most popular methods of consultation were surveys, focus groups and conferences.

Recommendations from the report  include that all youth participation opportunities should be fully accompanied by effective training provision and support staff, accreditation or recognition for participation should be provided and local authorities should make more use of popular social networking sites when advertising opportunities for young people. Other key recommendations include that for youth consultations to be meaningful they need to be frequent and youth-led and all local authorities should adopt a standard framework for monitoring and evaluation to measure the effectiveness and wider impact of youth participation models in their local area.

Fri, 08/01/2010 - 12:48