Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement

The Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement has many useful tools and resources online which can be searched alphabetically. Here is the result for youth participation. The site is also available in French.

Participation Works, an online gateway for youth participation

Participation Works is an online gateway for youth participation and a hub for information, resources, news and networking on the involvement of young people in dialogue, decision making and influence across a wide range of settings. Participation Works is a consortium of six leading children and young people's organisations that provides expert advice to anyone wanting to give a voice to children and young people.

What works in youth participation?

As critical as youth participation is to the notion of positive youth development, it remains a subject that defies easy description. What does it mean in different cultures? What inhibits and encourages youth participation? What lessons have we learned? What Works in Youth Participation: Case Studies from Around the World explores some of these critical questions in nine case essays, written by authors of diverse ages, nationalities, and perspectives. They speak candidly, and often quite personally, about their experiences in the field, and offer valuable lessons for practitioners and policy makers alike on what works and what barriers stand in the way of further progress.

The Concerned for Working Children

The Concerned for Working Children organisation although targeting younger children are involved in interesting participatory work that is guided by principles that we should all strive to adhere to. Among their extensive list of downloads is this useful publication, A Journey in Children's Participation. Click and go to the Dhruva page for this download.

Youth development and participation - a Pacific context

Paul Peteru, of the Commonwealth Youth Programme - Pacific Centre, made an interesting presentation on youth development at the recent regional youth stakeholders meeting. The paper focuses on some of the dilemmas and short-comings of programmes and projects that focus on youth participation and the possibilities for abuse and misuse of participation when it comes to youth development. There is much useful information in this document that should guide ways to improve youth participation in strategies aimed at improving their inclusion in agriculture and improving livelihoods in general.

There are a number of typologies or ladders of participation that have been developed as a means of assessing the level or quality of participation. Many of these have been developed in a more general development setting. However, Paul has brought to our attention a number of typologies and ladders that have been developed in the context of youth participation and development and could be useful in guiding and ensuring that what we talk about in terms of youth participation means exactly that.

These ladders include Roger Hart's Ladder of Young Peoples Participation. Here is an example of how Hart's ladder may be used in assessing the quality of youth participation in a gardening project. Westhorp's participation continuum is another example and a useful guide for developing a youth participation strategy can be found for download at the Foundation for Young Australians website. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page and click download Youth Partnership and Participation. Other similar models have been developed by Harry Shier and Elizabeth Rocha and details are available on the Internet. All are useful for reflection on what we mean by participation and what we are trying to achieve. By employing such diagnostic tools it is not to suggest that we have to be "at the top" rung, but rather, that we should be striving to get out of the lower rungs of non-participation, and think of ways to genuinely engage children and youth.

As Paul makes clear, the challenge for all of us is to consider what meaningful youth participation is and what it is not.

Participation, moving from rhetoric to practice and action

There is so much participation-speak to be found these days in the language and statements from a range of international organisations and bodies. However there is a considerable gap between this 'language of participation' and how well it is put into practice. There are as many bad examples of participation as there are good examples and there are a range of reasons for this from a lack of political will and commitment to real change through participation to poor learning and understanding of what participation actually means and involves and which is translated into poor practice. Many individuals and organisations believe that they can quite simply bring about significant change through participation without proper analysis of what participation is and how it challenges the status quo or current power structures. Quality participation requires quality learning and training and sadly this is an area largely neglected although there are some useful initiatives that have significantly improved the learning and teaching of participation.

With this in mind we have pulled together what we think is a useful range of resources and links that examine 'what is participation' and how the practice and action of action of participation can be improved. This resource can be found here and maybe useful in exploring ways and mechanisms for improving youth participation.