CYP Now - The National Youth Agency: Comment

This is a story about growing up, about economics and about democracy. As services and organisations develop they come to realise how important it is to involve the intended beneficiaries in making decisions. As a result, young people have learned the fundamental lesson of economics: how to manage scarce resources. Young people, their communities, elected members and workers in organisations come to understand that the ballot box is an important but minor part of a democratic society; there are other significant expressions of democracy such as communities making shared decisions with the state.

The story is how we moved from selling a menu of opportunities to young people and began to involve them in deciding for themselves what they want.

There are two starting points. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child enshrines the right of young people to have a voice on matters which concern them. Layer upon layer of initiatives have been built in this country, from Learning to Listen through Hear by Right, UK Youth Parliament, Beacon Councils for Youth Participation and Young Mayors the list grows. The second root is located in Transforming Youth Work; the major programme which set out and succeeded in improving what youth work offered to young people. So far so good. But it became clear you cannot transform youth work just from the outside.

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