Introduction
“As a country, we must respect and value young people’s opinions. Almost all government policies and decisions have an impact on young people’s lives and youth have the right to influence these decisions, both individually and collectively.”
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that sets out the rights of children (under 18 years of age),Footnote 1 including the right to express their views in all matters affecting them, as well as this quote from the introduction of Canada’s first Youth Policy (for those 15 to 29 years old)Footnote 2 recognize the importance and value of including young people’s voices in decision-making. However, policy development processes do not often have clear entry points for young peopleFootnote 3 to participate.
The purpose of this literature review and compendium of practices is to describe effective, promising and emerging practices for involving young people as much as possible in any policy development process. While some of the methods and practices have evolved over the past decade – and even in the past five years – to reflect changes in technology, culture, a global pandemic, and increasing pressures of climate change and social issues, the core principles and practices of child and youth involvement and engagement have endured.
This paper will present a continuum of processes and practices that together set a high bar of aspirational, gold standards of child and youth engagement. The principles and practices herein can be incorporated into policy development processes to work towards these gold standards. Using the core principles, particularly the principle of respect for the significance and value of direct voice of young people in policy development, can help guide policy makers to scope the scale, type and duration of child and youth engagement appropriately.
Framework for viewing activities with children and youth
The academic and organizational literature describes a wide spectrum of child and youth involvement in policy development. Table 1 provides a framework of involvement that delineates a range of beneficial activities from non-involvement to participation to engagement (adapted from the International Association for Public Participation, 2018; and Waite et al., 2024).
Table 1: Levels of child and youth involvement
| Non-involvement | Participation | Engagement | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary research | Inform | Consult | Involve | Collaborate | Empower |
| Search for and include research done by a third-party that shares child and youth voices. | Provide young people with balanced and objective information to understand the problem, opportunities and solutions. | Gather young people’s feedback on analysis, alternatives or decisions. | Work directly with young people throughout the process so their concerns and goals are understood and considered. | Partner with young people in each aspect of the policy decision including development of alternatives and selecting the preferred policy. | Place or share final decision-making in the hands of or with young people. |
Through each level of involvement, young people’s voices can inform policy and ensure that their needs are centered. On the non-involvement side of the spectrum, child and youth voice can be indirectly integrated into policy development through third-party child and youth-involved research, both from academic and non-academic publications. On the engagement side of the spectrum, young people can inform policy more directly.
As defined by the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, youth engagement is the sustained and meaningful involvement in something outside of the self (Pancer et al., 2002; Rose-Krasnor, 2009). The focus outside of the self is a key aspect of policy development; youth are often motivated to join and stay engaged because they can contribute to the well-being of their peers or future generations (Lawford et al., 2023). Full engagement involves a balance of positive outcomes for youth at the individual level (e.g., skill-building, identity development), at the social level (e.g., stronger relationships, larger supportive network), and system level outcomes (e.g., policies that are more responsive to young people’s needs, greater civic engagement) (McCart & Khanna, 2012). Activities undertaken at each of these levels have the potential to achieve positive outcomes.
Why is consultation considered participation, but not engagement? Most consultations (e.g., focus groups, surveys) do not allow for a reciprocal cycle of sharing and reviewing information and views from participants to the consultation host/researcher. Furthermore, consultations may be limited in terms of time and opportunities for young people to deliberate, to make-meaning of the initial input, to drive the agenda or to inform the questions being asked. These activities are often critiqued by young people because there is no direct benefit to them as contributors; they almost never find out what happened with their input.
In contrast, child and youth engagement is relationship-based – that is, there is an emphasis on the interpersonal connection between young people and adults – and sets up a reciprocal exchange of knowledge and learning between young people and adults in a positive child and youth development context (i.e., strengths-based). An engagement approach can advance child and youth rights around governance related to policy decisions that affect them because young people can more meaningfully participate (McCart & Khanna 2012; Swist et al., 2022). Also, young people experience benefits directly from engagement, which is linked to positive outcomes at the individual level (e.g., sense of well-being, leadership skills), social level (e.g., connections with supportive adults and peers) and system level (e.g., community engagement, responsible citizenship) (Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, 2003; Khanna et al., 2014; McCart & Khanna, 2012; Ramey et al., 2019; Ramey et al., 2018).
Regardless of where one begins on the spectrum of child and youth involvement there is potential for moving towards engagement by combining activities in iterative cycles of the process. For example, engaging young people to design a survey or focus group for their peers can level up a typical consultation. Similarly, after a third-party anonymous survey, bringing a group of young people together to review the preliminary findings and collaboratively analyze them has the potential for meaningful engagement and improving interpretation accuracy and validity.
This paper shares practices of child and youth participation and engagement in policy and starts by describing the targeted methodology used to gather the evidence-base for practices. The methodology is followed by findings that identify principles and practices that have a strong evidence base (effective practices), promising practices that have less evidence or evaluation, and emerging practices that reflect the changing landscape of the past few years, particularly in relation to technology use. A discussion of key considerations and challenges for implementation follows. Accompanying the literature review is a compendium of practices for child and youth voices in policy development.
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