HIGHLIGHTING YOUTH VOICE

If you’re planning to engage youth, make sure that you’re going into it with the right intentions—and with the capacity to follow through. If you’re bringing youth onto a project or into an organization simply to say that they’ve been consulted or to make you look good, then you shouldn’t be engaging young people; that’s tokenism (for a quick overview of tokenism, see this piece written by one of our Youth Advisory Group members). Youth are more than aware of situations where they’re being tokenized, and you’ll certainly have trouble maintaining their involvement or their trust if you aren’t taking the time to properly listen to and act on what they’re saying. In the words of one of our survey participants, “engagement for engagement’s sake can impede meaningful engagement down the road.”

Many organizations engage youth with the main goal of bringing in a fresh perspective, someone who thinks about the world in a way they might not have previously considered. For that fresh perspective to be useful, however, you have to first make space for it to be heard, and then choose to follow through by making real changes. The youth we spoke with had no patience for arguments of “it’s always been done this way” —something they’ve come up against far too often—and the majority identified jobs and experiences where they’d explicitly been asked to contribute their opinions, and seen them actioned, as being overwhelmingly positive. The way things have always been done, in a world that is constantly changing and evolving, just doesn’t work, and in many cases, has excluded a significant number of people. We can, and should, be striving for better. 

How can you integrate this practice into your work?

• Create intentional spaces for youth to voice their thoughts and opinions—whether that means setting up regular one-on-one check-ins, larger group meetings, surveys, or having frequent, less formal conversations, make sure that youth know it’s their space to share, and that you want to hear what they have to say.
• Engage in a meaningful conversation and act on what you’re hearing! Following through shows how much you value youth voice, and lets youth see the impact their voice has had. If you’re truly unable to act on what youth are telling you, be honest about why, and have a conversation about possible alternatives or compromises. 

Including youth in decision-making processes is another important step in highlighting youth voice, especially when the decisions being made will directly impact youth, but also across the board. Only half the youth who responded to our youth survey said they were involved in their organization’s decision-making process, and only a third said that they felt their voice (or vote) held equal weight to that of an adult—and yet, the majority felt most valued when their opinions were taken into account, and taken seriously. Ensuring that youth are heard throughout the decision-making process will help them feel welcome and like their voices matter, ensure that the decisions being made support youths’ further engagement, and create more effective and sustainable decisions by increasing the diversity of perspectives involved. 

How can you integrate this practice into your work?

• If your organization works with youth in any capacity, make sure that youth are present on your boards, committees, and advisory groups. 
• If you don’t already have an advisory group or something similar, consider forming one! To start thinking about what that might look like for you, and what a youth advisory group could offer, check out this blog post about the CEI’s Youth Advisory Group (who helped us build this framework!)
• When making decisions about projects or your organization as a whole that will impact the youth you work with, ensure that those youth are informed, consulted, and given the opportunity to voice their opinions. 
• In situations where voting happens more formally, make sure that youth are included in the vote, and that their votes hold equal weight.

Similar to decision-making, youth should be involved in helping develop programs that are intended for their participation; a favourite saying among youth-serving organizations is ‘nothing for us without us.’ Not only will programs designed with youth involvement better meet the wants and needs of youth, but it’s clear from our conversations with youth and youth-serving organizations that young people will be more engaged in programs they’ve helped design and have some degree of ownership over. 

Working with youth in spaces where program development, decision making, or other complex conversations are happening—particularly with lots of contributing partners—there’s always a possibility that you’ll come up against pushback (not everyone is as open to having youth at the table). When you’re bringing youth into those spaces, being prepared to support them through that potential pushback is important. If adults in the room are being dismissive, overbearing, or even aggressive, try your best to call out and mitigate that behaviour in the room, but also ensure that you’re finding time to debrief with youth afterwards. In scenarios like these, you’re their advocate!

With programs that are past the development phase, being willing to adapt and shift based on what youth are bringing forward is also an important piece of responding to and highlighting youth voice. The quote below, from one of the youth-serving organizations we interviewed, is a great example of pivoting programming to respond to youth needs—youth communicated that they needed support to be able to use a resource to its fullest extent, so the organization was able to shift their program to better align with that need.

How can you integrate this practice into your work?

• When designing programs for youth, start by asking youth what they want to see, and then make sure they have a seat at the table throughout the development process.
• Once programs have launched, look for continuous feedback from youth, and be open to adapting existing programs based on what they say. It’s never a bad thing to take a moment to pause and re-evaluate! Receiving ongoing feedback doesn’t mean you’ll need to completely reinvent your programming three months in, but it does mean you’ll be able to make small shift that better reflect your participants—for example, offering a transportation stipend if youth let you know that paying for the bus or for gas is a key barrier in their participation; or, shifting your program timing if it intersects with the end times of local schools.

Another amazing way to highlight youth voice is to support youth-led projects. Making space for youth to pursue something they’re passionate about can produce some truly wonderful results, and lead to significant learnings for everyone involved. 

It’s important to note, however, that just because a project is youth-led, adults can still play an important role. Chances are, youth may not have all the skills or information they need right off the bat, and adult support can serve to better prepare them for what they have planned. How much or how little support a youth may need is largely individual, but having that conversation and figuring it out together will mean a great deal.

How can you integrate this practice into your work?

• Encourage youth to take ownership over the projects they’re tasked with and allow them the freedom and trust to do so. 
• When possible, offer youth the chance to design and implement their own projects from beginning to end. You can find examples of what that could look like spread out across this framework—May’s Queer(ies) podcast, and our YAG blog-posts and infographics. Other organizations the CEI works with have also shared the value that youth-led projects bring to their workplace, allowing youth to dive into things they’re passionate about and share those with their colleagues and each other. 
• When supporting a youth-led project, offer support to help youth succeed—this might look like offering feedback during the planning phase, helping the youth make connections, supporting research, offering funds, or helping them identify and build the skills they’ll need to make their project happen. The best way to determine what supports to offer, as always, is to ask the youth—they know what they need better than anyone else!
• See the first subheading under our framework section on Youth-Adult Partnership for more tips and strategies on knowing when to offer support, and when to step back.

Peer-to-peer learning is something else that youth identified as having a positive impact on their experiences interacting with organizations, either as employees or otherwise. They spoke about how primarily adult organizations can sometimes feel isolating, and how connecting with other young people in those spaces helped them feel another level of support. Being able to talk to someone closer to your own age, in a similar stage of life, is really helpful when you’re processing all of the new experiences that come with employment, or with accessing services. Having the space to figure things out together and share learnings with each other will result in increased confidence and comfort, and support skill and knowledge building among the youth you engage with.

How can you integrate this practice into your work?

• Create spaces for the youth you engage with to engage with each other—whether that looks like regular youth-specific gatherings, a Teams or Slack channel where youth can connect, or opportunities for youth to share their learnings. 
• At the CEI, our summer student interns participate in Communities of Learning, where they spend a few hours every other week listening to one of their peers present on a subject they’re passionate about. It’s a youth-led space that’s received wonderful feedback from the youth we work with!