Much to the annoyance of all, and perhaps to the surprise of some, I made the comment the other day that I was fed up with youth participation.

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I think you're very right to challenge this. For me the issue isn't so much that its too bland - I think that its too vague! I also think that so much emphasis is being placed on the 'rights of participation' to the detriment of directing energies into 'how' to do it effectively. A very good example of this is what I understand to be the failure of the self appointed lead body for Youth Participation - Participation Works - to have involved young people in anything but a tokenistic manner in their own operations - what example is it to other organisations that this organisation didn't even invite their own youth advisory group to their official launch?! I think without a clear meaning of the term and a genuine desire to change thinking so that young people can effectively participate if they wish and at a level they're comfortable with - it will quickly become a tired term. One way of looking at this could be to move beyond 'participation' and give more consideration to 'accountability' - I've written in more detail about my thoughts on this here: http://www.breakfastsociety.com/2008/03/more-than-just-youth-participation-accountability/ If organsiations could be made to be accountable to the young people they work with/for perhaps then participation can become more meaningful than showing a few young people onto a committee.

Glad to hear you say all this, Howard. Consultation is a bad model of participation anyway, and all of us know young people who have been 'consulted to death', and consultations which have been shelved or ignored (the Every Child Matters young people's consultation, for instance). I prefer the term 'involvement'. If the challenge is not just to speak to young people, but actually involve them in decisions, things have to be done very differently. Meetings have to be rescheduled and reformatted, made accessible and relevant, and come to clear decisions. It's not just good for the young people, it's good for the adults too - because it means busting through the layers of jargon and bulls**t which adults build up around their professionalism, their meetings and their processes to make themselves feel important and valuable (and I include myself and other youth workers in this - we're all guilty of it). It helps us get back to the nitty-gritty and get things done. The problem is, it's scary for many adults because it means sharing power, and because it means not knowing exactly what will happen at every turn. But it would lead to a more just society, less alienated young people, and clearer and more direct public processes. Let's stop using that horrible word, 'consultation', altogether.

Consultation is not just a bad model of participation - it is not participation at all!! Consultation seeks to gather opinion after the fact, participation seeks to ensure that the service is right prior to delivery by engaging with the services recipients to shape the service. Quite how anyone can be fed up with providing better services is beyond me. If participation is too bland to be meaningful or consists of shoving young people onto a committee - you are missing the ethos of participation at its most basic level.

Consultation isn't necessarily after-the-fact - it's only after-the-fact if it's insincere consultation (which in my experience most, but not all, of it is). It is possible to sincerely consult, but even in those cases, I would say it's a bad model of participation, because it's only a snapshot at a particular moment, and as Lee says, misses the point, which is deep and ongoing involvement. Shoving young people on committees doesn't work either of course - which is why I argue that adult processes have to profoundly change to involve young people. Participation workers need to get better at community work, though - we won't get anywhere by just getting angry at the failure of adults to change to involve young people, or at tokenism. We need to be in at the start, helping shape processes and structures to promote young people's involvement. We need to understand why involvement (not just of young people, but of the wider community) doesn't happen effectively in public life, and not just assume it's because everyone in power is a bad person. There are power dynamics at work, and we need to understand them and know how to negotiate them. This means being able to work with communities, get on with politicians and present our arguments well - and, more importantly, attractively - to officers of organisations; and all without colluding.

Spot on Matt!

Consultation can be very useful and it is part of being involved. In every organisation there are opportunities for employees to participate (through their employment and the roles and responsibilities they hold) - that doesn't mean they aren't also consulted and it doesn't mean that sometimes the views you give aren't taken on board or agreed with and that this is necessarily a bad thing - they're all parts of the job.

For young people that aren't employed in the organisation but but are expected to somehow participate they need similar  opportunities to have clear roles and responsibilities within that organisation if they're going to be able to make a useful contribution.

My point about 'shoving young people onto a committee' seems to have been lost! I clearly wasn't endorsing that I'm trying to challenge it. Thats not to say that young people on committees is a bad thing - what I meant is that its an overused and unimaginative model and I think its correct to say that it needs more consideration to the needs, interests and limitations of young people - not simply placing them into adult structures.

My experience though is that very many organisations are satisfied if they are able to get some young people on a committee or some sort of 'youth forum' in place - for many it ticks the 'participation box' - regardless of how much impact or responsibility those young people can have and regardless of whether they are actually able to effectively represent the views of other young people - my case in point is that as far as I'm aware this is exactly what Participation Works have done which doesn't set a good example for others to follow.

'Participation' 'Meaningful Involvement' 'Consultation' 'Empowerment' & so on - they're all in the same bag and they can all work well, and they can all be tokenistic and work badly, so I go back to my original point which is what is lacking is accountability. How many of the organisations/services you work for are actually accountable back to young people? If your work was accountable to young people it would surely raise the need to get young people involved and able to understand the work you do and in my opinion lead to more effective participation. Nobody is questioning better services - my question is whether the current approach is actually leading to that?
 

We also need to raise the question of what we're doing all this for, and who we're doing it with. Who are these 'young people' we all talk about abstractly? There are around 25000 young people aged 13-19 in the borough in which I work. How can we meaningfully involve all of these (or even a statistically significant number) in service development and delivery? User groups and committees at the point of access (youth club etc) are great but won't affect strategy or policy without something else in place. Organisations like the UK Youth Parliament are potentially a good avenue, but have difficulties of their own - not least, the inverted snobbery they receive from plenty of youth workers. And we can't get all of those 25young people involved without some kind of consultation. Just as with adult structures, broader involvement is necessarily shallower involvement. Some people get their opinions to government every day - but most of us only once every five years or so, at general elections. Referenda with young people may be effective, but they're inconsistent with our democracy in the UK, which is after all representative not delegatory. Service improvement is great, but we need to recognise that it is not going to be feasible to fully involve all young people in this process. The problems with a lot of bad models of consultation largely disappear if we make sure they're done sincerely, and done well. Even consultation is not so bad so long as it's sincere and well done, isn't left on the shelf, isn't assumed to still be current in three years time, and is searching and genuine rather than loaded with agendas (ECM was absolutely chock-full of leading questions, for instance). Most importantly, it needs to be tied up with other forms of participation rather than done on its own. Its vulnerability to these problems, rather than any inherent weakness, is what makes it a bad model. But then, in order to create structures which properly involve young people, adults will have to make decisions. It is the quality and sincerity of THIS process which matters.

"And we can't get all of those 25young people involved without some kind of consultation" That should have said 25K young people ...

"The problems with a lot of bad models of consultation largely disappear if we make sure they're done sincerely, and done well" And that should have read 'bad models of participation' ...

Its also important to recognise that a very large portion don't want to participate -  the point is they have the right to in those things that affect them.....if they want to!

I agree the UKYP suffers from inverted snobbery - although I would also say that perhaps the emphasis of their recruitment processes should be more balanced towards supporting the young people that do get selected to be able to effectively represent the young people in their areas (and not to assume that simply because they're young and in some form 'elected' they can speak on behalf of 'all young people') - we've done some work with the Cheshire Youth Parliament towards this and some info is here:

http://www.breakfastsociety.com/?s=cyp08

While the emphasis is purely on participation its always going to be open to question as to how and who participates. If instead a model of accountability was used there could be the opportunity for any young person to challenge how an organisation/service works including the opportunities and methods for young people to participate within it.

To use your example I expect a very large percentage of the 25,000 young people in your borough do not attend youth services so why would you ask them to participate? (I assume you don't therefore they can't) However if it was known that each year every young person had the opportunity to attend an event at which your service reports openly to young people about what you have been doing and how, and that during this any young person in the borough can freely ask questions of senior decision makers, they would have a much better opportunity to participate than they otherwise would. This could easily be extended to include an Annual Accounatbility Report posted on a website that allows for young people to comment - widening the opportunity to participate even further.

This doesn't detract from the value of having smaller groups of young people participate in other ways such as on committees or in projects to help with the ongoing work of the service - but it does provide everyone with an opportunity to participate which currently they don't have.

Of course the question is how comfortable are service providers with that kind of accountability? And if they're not you have to wonder why....... 

Natalie Jeal, PWNE Coordinator, Participation Works

Thanks Natalie - we are indeed listed as a 'partner' however this doesn't seem to involve much in the way of involvement either way.

The event to which I referred was called 'The Participation Works Launch Event' (and is listed as such on your website) I'm sorry that I couldn't attend this event - I had wanted to but it was in the half term holiday and we had a family holiday booked. We do have two young people on your Advisory Group (one of our Directors and one of our Trainers) and I did assume they would be attending in my absence and this is how word got back to me that the members of the Advisory Group hadn't actually had an invite. I appreciate the event may have been aimed at practitioners but in the case of the young people from YoMo both are young people that have been delivering training with us in excess of 6 years and I believe other members of the Advisory Group are similarly experienced - it certainly isn't right to assume that young people are not practitioners, and it still seems remiss not to have invited them particularly when presumably you are hoping they will participate in the work of the organisation?!

Participation Works may not be a services delivery agent but given the high profile and resources of the organisation I think it does have a responsibility to set a good example.

Hi Mike - I would argue that involvement is a broader church than simply those who access youth services. The broader issue is that young people are effectively an oppressed minority, in that they have no voice within our government and public decision-making structures. Granted, many do not want to participate - but we need to ask why they don't. In some cases it will be an informed choice, or just down to laziness or not being bothered, in which case, fine; but (as with adult voting) some will not participate because they don't know they can, or because they have been put off by past 'participation'. If we don't challenge this we are simply accepting disengagement and disaffection. Involvement is about correcting this, not simply about improving services delivered to those young people who choose to access them (and anyway, who knows how many more young people would access youth services if they were delivered in a more effective and inclusive way - and we need their feedback to find out what that is). I agree that accountability is the way forward - and that the kind of involvement I'm arguing for is about embedding that accountability within local and national government, as well as within structures which deal with young people (which includes local government services which don't only deal with young people - housing departments, for instance). What I would ask you is - why would you not cast the net wider than those who currently access youth services? The problem I was raising, though, is of meaningful involvement, and many services (including the one I work for) currently undertake events along the lines you suggest. I just happen to think that it doesn't do the full job. A few young people at an event can't speak for thousands. What we need is tied-up approaches - broad (sincere) consultation with openness to what the results actually say, not what we want them to; accountability; user-group type structures; and support for groups of young people to operate on a campaigning basis without an adult agenda telling them what to look at -ie. working to their interests, not simply for service improvement. Adult democracy rightly takes multiple forms, and so should involvement of young people. Incidentally, I worked for 3 years as a UKYP support worker for another borough, so I'm only too aware of the democratic issues inherent in UKYP work. We worked round this by retaining any unsuccessful candidates who wished to still be involved to support the elected MYP's work, and by basing MYP's campaigns on consultation (sincere consultation, that is), so that involvement of young people in the campaigns was not only at the point of election. We also attempted to involve as many young people as possible in the elections themselves, but as you will well know, that is not an easy process (issues with funding, other agencies being unwilling to get involved etc).

 Hi Matt - I very much agree with what you say. I didn't mean that those young people that aren't involved in services shouldn't have the opportunity to be involved/participate - what I meant was that the current emphasis means its very unlikely that they would get that opportunity. However if the emphasis was shifted to accountability then perhaps this would lead to all young people having the opportunity to participate.

My thinking is based on that currently the favoured model is of a small group of young people somehow representing other young people (often n a generic way which is a very poor model) - but if we can shift the requirement for organisations to just get a few young people somehow participating to instead being held accountable to all young people they provide a service for (whether they're active/involved or not) then I think the result would be more effective involvement by young people (and certainly more motivation for organisations to support this). 

Of course this isn't currently on the agenda so in the meantime we have to make the best of supporting those models that are in use to be as effective as possible but I hope that more organisations will start to look into the idea of accountability with as much interest as the current participation agenda. 

The problem with the current favoured model, and with the type of consultation we usually see, is simply that it isn't about the young people at all. It's about service improvement. Now, service improvement is not in itself a bad goal to have, but participation is caught between a rock and a hard place - is it about service development or young people's development? - and good participation work needs to be able to do both at once. Personally, I prefer supporting young people to campaign on issues which they have identified to working to develop services, largely because I think the former is a better venue for youth work (in the sense of it being a development opportunity for the young person), but in the current climate there is little opportunity to work this way. The small, representative group model is (like consultation) not inherently good or bad, but can be well or badly done. The more I reflect on this, the more I think that the key is - as you say - accountability, along with sincerity (which is, as we all know, very often missing); and on a practical level, the key must be to take a range of approaches in order to extend the maximum number of opportunities to the maximum number of young people, which will also give organisations a wide range of feedback and involvement. In other words - tokenism cannot cut it. Anyhow Mike, I'm shortly starting a new job in youth strategy for an organisation in London. I think it would be useful to stay in touch!