Background to the Research

• A number of agencies came together to explore how children and young people in NI can be more fully engaged as equal citizens and how they can have an input into the development of policy and services. The group, comprising the Youth Council NI, YouthNet, NI Youth Forum and Save the Children, sought to find effective mechanisms for supporting service providers to develop the capacity to engage children and young people in their processes.
  

Research Approach

• Desk research and internet searches were performed to provide an overview of existing resources and materials.
• The primary method of data collection comprised structured interviews and focus groups as follows:
  • Interviews with senior personnel from 30 voluntary sector and Non-Departmental Public Body groups, including the NGO sector, youth service groups, and childcare sector. These groups were selected due to their expertise in youth involvement and/or their representation of groups of young people who have been traditionally excluded from civic engagement.
  • Interviews with managers from 14 statutory and public sector organisations, and with 10 senior officials at Departmental level. These were identified as being potential 'recipients' of any youth involvement network.
  • In order to elicit the views of young people, a reference group of 9 young people was established. These participants had experience of being involved in decision making.
  • Focus group sessions with 45 young people who had no experience of being involved in public consultation or decision making.
  • In total 54 in-depth interviews were conducted, along with focus group sessions involving 54 young people
• The feasibility study was designed to assess:
  • The nature of existing and future participation needs, from the perspectives of young people and statutory/departmental groups; and
  • Whether the appropriate skills and support exist within the ranks of child/youth providers to fulfil this need. ple.
    

Main Findings

• Whilst focus group sessions with young people revealed clear distinctions between those who had, and had not, previous experience of civic involvement, it was notable that the latter group appeared as enthusiastic about the concept of participation as the former grouping.
• In selecting young people with no prior experience of involvement the study had intentionally targeted young people who are commonly regarded as 'hard to reach' and under-represented in public participation (for example homeless, unemployed, young offenders, as well as those from minority groupings). There is a widespread perception that such young people are variously politically apathetic, disinterested in civic engagement, difficult to motivate, and unwilling or unable to express their views to authority figures.
• The focus group sessions found the converse to be true with virtually all of the young respondents expressing a desire to engage. The evidence would suggest that reasons behind failures to engage with 'marginalised' young people rest with the use of inappropriate methodologies, as opposed to an inherent resistance to engage by young people.
• Whilst young people clearly support the concept of youth involvement, the sustainability and quality of their input was viewed as conditional on several elements, and particularly:
  • Young people must sense that they are truly part of change creation, i.e. the impact of their involvement has to be demonstrably 'real';
  • A personal development element should be incorporated, both to build capacity among young people for immediate involvement and to provide skills which can be applied in their future lives;
  • Participation should allow for social interaction with peers, Statutory bodies and Government Departments.
• Whilst all statutory bodies and most of the Departments recounted some experience of involving children and young people, it was apparent that this primarily took the form of short term consultative approaches, with relatively few bodies reporting sustained involvement mechanisms.
• Respondents were asked what forms of support would be useful. The most commonly mentioned needs were:
  • Support to facilitate consultation events;
  • Training for staff on how to consult with /work alongside children and young people;
  • Support to involve children and young people on planning groups/decision making forums;
  • Help to develop a strategy/action plan for involving children and young people;
  • Access to materials/manuals on how to involve young people Child and Youth Providers.
• Overall, it was found that the child and youth providers had played various roles in terms of supporting a broad range of statutory organisations and Departments. The most common forms of intervention had included:
  • Research/survey-based advocacy;
  • Running events to facilitate dialogue between young people and professionals; and
  • Awareness-raising activities, although many other activities were mentioned.
• Whilst around eighty per cent of the respondents had received requests for help from statutory agencies in relation to involving young people, the majority of all respondents stated that they had limited (13%) or no (63%) organisational capacity to respond.
  

Conclusions

• As a general overview, this study found overwhelming support for the development of a strategic and collaborative approach to extend the involvement of young people in public decision making in Northern Ireland. The need for this was affirmed by the potential members of a future consortium (primarily voluntary sector groups), by potential service recipients (statutory and departmental bodies), and most importantly, by young people.
• There were, however, several important caveats to this support; from young people, the view that participation would have to be meaningful and impacting; from NGO groups there were concerns about the effective operationalisation of such an endeavour; and concerns from statutory bodies and departmental groups centred on ensuring senior-level commitment and the need to give due regard for other equality issues.
• Many respondents from both voluntary and statutory perspectives voiced concern about current and future constraints in terms of insufficient resources to support participative approaches.