Delivering the experience strand | Youth group

Key topics

• Democratic rights, values and responsibilities.
• Dialogue, deliberation and robust and respectful debate.
• Youth voice, representation, and leadership.
• Collective and participatory decision-making.

Why the Experience strand matters in youth settings

Exploring youth voice is a natural fit for youth spaces, giving young people room to develop their own voice and contribute to issues and decisions that matter to them. Modelling democratic culture can also show the importance of fairness, considering others and creating spaces that work for everyone.

Youth spaces are particularly well placed to do this because:

• They can involve young people directly in decisions and show that decision making can not only be enjoyable, but have a clear and positive impact.
• Youth work already excels at centring young people in designing and delivering programmes.

One of the greatest challenges is making sure all young people have opportunities to shape decisions and use their voice, rather than simply amplifying those who are already confident and first to speak. Offer different ways to contribute, build confidence gradually and show clearly where young people’s input has made a difference.

My approach

Having your voice heard is not something you teach or explain, but an opportunity you are given or that you create. Youth Voice can be embedded throughout a youth space –  from organisational strategy to day-to-day decisions, to on-going structures such as youth steering groups – giving young people confidence in their ideas, their ability to lead and a real sense of ownership.

A few things I’d recommend:

• A great place to start is simply asking young people which areas of decision making they would like to be involved in.
• Give young people real decisions to shape, rather than giving them tokenistic choices to make. The more meaningful the issue is, the more likely they are to engage.
• Create different ways to contribute. Meetings may work for a confident few, but games, mind maps, group discussions and anonymous feedback can help you hear from those who are not first to put their hands up.
• Design the process with young people. Ask what kinds of spaces and processes actually make them feel able to express themselves.
• Use peer-to-peer learning. Giving young people opportunities to lead learning for their peers can be a powerful form of youth voice in itself.
• Show young people the impact they have had. Too often, we forget to feed back where their ideas or actions have genuinely influenced a decision.

Finally, connect these experiences to wider society. Explore routes such as voting, petitions, protest and lobbying, and discuss where in their community young people would like to make change happen, linking to the Influence strand.

If you can only do one thing...

Give young people a real decision to shape in your youth space, make sure their involvement can genuinely affect what happens, action that change, and show them what changed as a result.

Where this fits into youth settings

Whether it’s young people choosing activities or having more say over how the space is run, there are lots of ways to build youth ownership into everyday practice:

• Give young people more say over day-to-day decisions.
• Identify parts of the budget they could influence, from snacks and activities to trips or how a room is decorated.
• Involve young people in recruitment, perhaps by choosing an interview question or taking part in the interview itself.
• Invite young people to contribute to strategic decisions, and think creatively about how to gather their ideas.
• Use games or role play to put young people in the shoes of decision-makers, then share their ideas with organisational leaders.
• At its most ambitious, create larger activities, such as escape room-style experiences, to help young people shape organisational decisions, even better if these are designed and led by young people themselves.
• Create a youth steering group: For more ongoing involvement, bring together a group of young people to help shape priorities, feed into decisions and develop ideas over time.

There are loads of opportunities, but start small, get young people used to leading and see where it takes you.

Key resources

If you have 30 minutes or less…

• The biscuit game, The Politics Project – Use this game from the At The Table toolkit to explore power, decision making and how young people use their own voice. Finish by discussing what made the decision feel fair or unfair and what helped different people have a say.

1 hour…

• The biscuit game and Moments of change, The Politics Project – Start with the Biscuit Game to explore voice and decision making, then use Moments of Change to help young people recognise how they already make a positive difference and the agency they have to create change. Finish by discussing where they already have a say and where they would like more influence.

1–3 hours…

• My political journey toolkit - Step 3: My way forward, Elect Her and Sex Ed Matters – Use the toolkit to help young people turn an issue or idea into a concrete goal and identify practical next steps. Start by asking what they would like more say over in your youth space and agree what is genuinely open to change and how they want to be involved.

4–6 hours…

• Begin by exploring the issues that matter to the young people you work with. Once they have explored issues you can then move into a structured debate or deliberation.
• Debating - secondary resource pack, UK Parliament - All young people to discuss/debate key issues they have learnt about. Use this pack to assist. If learners are struggling to come up with their own examples, the pack provides some debate topics, which learners can argue for/against. This can also be used to debate issues related to the youth setting, and working together to make decisions.

6 hours plus…

• After young people have had the opportunity to discuss or debate what matters to them, move into considering how they can be involved in making their voices heard about the issues they care about.
• Implementing youth voice toolkit, Youth Focus North East and the Peer Action Collective – Use the ‘Co-production in practice’ section on pages 30–31 to structure what happens next: young people review what they heard, identify what should happen and help shape the action that follows. Take the strongest ideas to people with the power to act, then use the toolkit’s ‘You Said; We Did’ approach to close the feedback loop and show what happened as a result.

Considerations for learners with additional needs.

The core principles of youth voice are the same when working with young people with additional needs. The aim is still to give young people meaningful influence, rather than adapting an activity so much that the decision has effectively already been made for them.

To support meaningful participation:

• Make the decision clear. Break the process into smaller stages and be explicit about what is being decided, what is open to change and what will happen afterwards. If helpful, use pictures, objects, examples or physical choices rather than relying only on discussion or abstract ideas.
• Offer different ways to contribute, such as talking in a group or one-to-one, ranking options, using symbols, drawing, moving around the room or voting anonymously.
• Allow more processing time and check that participants understand the decisions being taken without making it feel like a test.
• Keep expectations high while providing the support young people need to take part meaningfully and as independently as possible.
• Help young people understand and communicate their own choices rather than narrowing their options or making decisions on their behalf.