There was a lot of good feeling from the delegates about how participation is spreading across all sorts of settings, and how it is becoming more commonplace for young people's views to be taken into account.
But I also picked up feelings of frustration from some of the delegates.
Many talked of having to constantly battle with colleagues and external partners to promote the views of children and young people, for example reminding people in meetings that children and young people might have quite useful, important and valuable views about the leisure centre being built in their area.
In most cases participation workers are on short-term contracts, struggling every year as March approaches to continue with their normal workload while searching for new funding. A lot of participation workers are employed by local authorities or voluntary organisations who rely on short-term funding.
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