The notion of giving real weight to input from young people as ‘experts by experience’ in their own lives is one that can’t be emphasised enough. A model for valuing experiential expertise can be seen in the NHS’ expert patients programme.
http://tinyurl.com/2rtxo5

I agree wholly with your comment that a process
“should test adult ideas against young people’s concrete stories about their own lived experience.”
It is now a case of getting that message of the value that this can offer across to policy makers.
An encouraging research approach involving young offenders can be found here: http://www.vrg.cf.ac.uk/

I think you’re right though to try and shift the argument away from purely age considerations and instead value what people can offer and that their age shouldn’t discrimate from them being able to make that offer.

I think what I’ve tried to say about is: ‘age does matter’ – but we have to know why it matters in particular circumstances and we have to design involvement on that basis so that it is not tokenistic.

I also don’t think an event should be written off if there are no young faces. I think it should be questioned if the organisers haven’t even considered whether or not it is appropriate to engage young people inputting into the event or process in some way (which may not be through a physical presence…).

Hopefully the three reasons above emphasise exactly that it is wrong for an organiser to involve any young person just because of their age. It can be valid, under Reason #1, to involve someone just because they are a young stakeholder in the issue – as, being a stakeholder, their contribution should be valued.

I broadly agree that ‘your age does not matter, what you have to contribute does’ – until we set up and require ways of contributing (as I know YoMo does not, but many other settings do) which are, by their design, exclusive and difficult for young people to engage in. Then age does matter – we have to take specific efforts to redress that balance.

At event 1 there are 10 practitioners all who have successfully worked with a variety of hard to reach groups for over 10 years, and there are 5 people who have run exceptional projects with hard to reach groups for 20 years+

At event 2 there are 15 youth workers, none of who have been responsible for developing or running a project with hard to reach young people – however all of them have brought some young people with them.

If you want to learn how best to effectively engage hard to reach young people which will you choose?

I don’t disagree with any of the reasons given – but I do disagree with tokenism and I think that currently there is a lot of it.

I also have a problem with events and organisations that turn out the same ‘old’ young people and get the ‘young person thing’ covered that way! – Like these represent ‘any’ young person!

To me the real issue is discrimination. Its wrong for young people not to be involved because of their age. Its also wrong to be involved just because of their age. What should count is what they can contribute.

Of course ideally you want young people that can contribute at events – they’re much richer for it – but I don’t think events should be written off just because there aren’t some young faces. If you’re young and you have something to offer your age shouldn’t restrict you from attending (and this includes consideration to age related restrictions like the time of the week, costs & so on) – but just being young is not enough.

The other thing I dislike thats related to this is the ‘them’ & ‘us’ situation it creates – it devalues peoples opinions if they are above a certain age (and what age is that by the way?!) – what I’m interested in is people of all ages working together to find the best solutions for children & young people – your age does not matter – what you have to contribute does!