Point 2 is particularly interesting – and one I think many organisations find the trickiest. For example, problems arise when you are mixing adults as employees/staff/in official capacities, with young people as stakeholders (when there could be adult stakeholders as well… but these are not present).

Thanks to a somewhat incidental set of circumstances involving an iron and a blown fuse I’ve just lost the first response I wrote here, and have walked into work to find working net access. Luckily that’s given me more time to think about Roger’s challenge of a conversation on the criteria of effective youth participation in ‘adult’ events and processes.

I was initially thinking that some of this can be captured in criteria like:

>Young people need to be effectively informed about the context of their involvement

>The process should not predetermine the outcomes (although it may justifiably narrow the range of possible outcomes to those that are broadly plausible given the particular constraints of the decision making young people are inputting into)

But I realised that:

a) It’s tricky to find simple principles or criteria that do not end up with qualifications and caveats to the Nth degree.

b) The design of participation processes is, above all, a creative process – where there is no neccessarily right answer for the best method or input in any particular case (although of course, some are suitable in some situations and not others).

So – I wonder if what we can better take forward a start to the discussion on ‘What is the best way to ensure young people’s effective participation in a mainstream event, forum or process?’ (please feel free to suggest a rephrased question if I’ve missed the essence) by looking at the critical questions that need to be asked of the creative participation planning process.

For example (at a quick first attempt that would need a lot more development before I could defend it):

• Does the process being used limit the range of views young people could reasonably express? If so, can this be justified?

We could get some preliminary suggestions going in the comments here, then I’d be happy to either move this into a wider forum, or summarise the initial discussions in a blog post and invite a wider group of contributors to come and throw in their thoughts…

The issue you raise is therefore really important – to make a distinction between ‘the voice’ and ‘a voice’ and I agree that ‘a voice’ is valid and potentially very useful too. Much of society is run in this way – are Government focus groups really representative? Are MORI polls really representative? But they are still valuable.

With regard to this question “the real interesting question remains: How to ensure effective youth participation in an assembly with a majority of older delegates?” I think the key issue here lies not with young people but with the “older delegates” – motivating young people to contribute is rarely difficult in my experience – ensuring adults support young people and see ideas/projects through on the otherhand is rarely easy and my observations of mixed adult/young people events this year has been horribly patronising – young people being openly applauded for nothing other than being young!

I think a greater effort to involve young people in activities for the genuine skills they can contribute will eventually lead to a more equal relationship – this needs to happen on a much wider basis and there has to be a move away from projects (in the UK) that ‘throw’ a group of young people together and call them a ‘youth forum’ – if this can happen at the ‘ground level’ maybe eventually there could be ‘a voice’ for young people – until then I agree there’s no harm in providing space for the many other voices.

for taking up my comment about youth declarations. What you are writing is certainly right and I am very much in favor of youth declarations/messages in that sense. If you look at my original comment, I was simply quoting the negative views of others.
However, the real interesting question remains: How do ensure effective youth participation in an assembly with a majority of older delegates?
If we are talking about this we already share two basic assumptions that are not always agreed:

1. Young people should be included in the decision making of the organization
2. Because of structural disadvantages young people need their own space at an assembly

Here are some examples:

• Youth declaration
• Youth stage time with theater, speeches
• Demonstration (like distributing condoms on the delegates’ desks in order to make a point about HIV and Aids)
• Youth coalition to push a specific topic (like introducing a resolution to be voted on by the assembly)
• Preparing young delegates that they can effectively work on their interests without an over all youth agenda

Therefore, the philosophical question is not whether youth declarations are “possible”, the question is: Are they the best way to ensure youth participation?

My answer would be a very convinced “perhaps” but I am very sure that they have to be part of a larger strategy. As a stand-alone-measure youth declarations are quite often meaningless and soon forgotten (which is probably the case for the CIVICUS declaration, as well). I would be interested in a conversation of what are the criteria on what measures to use.

Sorry for the long comment!