Youth Participation in the UK

Bureaucratic Disaster or Triumph of Child Rights?

Abstract

*Focus on Europe | Reports from the Field

This paper investigates the history, methods, effects and future of youth participation in the UK from the perspective of a youth participant. The paper begins with an outline of the history of the development of youth participation in the UK over the last 15 years. It explores the government’s use of youth participation, as well as the methods various charities and other organizations use to involve children and young people in their work, on both local and national levels. The impact of youth participation on decision-making is assessed and the problems facing youth participation are also considered, with a particular emphasis on the issue of tokenism.

Examining the future of youth participation in the UK, the paper concludes that organizations outside the children’s services sector need to embrace youth participation and the quality of youth participation should be improved. The paper asserts that youth participation needs to become more popular among young people and would benefit from a wider range of young people being involved.