My team needs youth voice – can the participation team help?

We can support with:

• Co-producing projects in line with young people’s priorities
• Team support and advice on participation
• working with you to create a meaningful plan to engage young people
• working with your young people to get their voices heard on an issue
• Support you to give the young people feedback
• we can offer your engagement opportunity widely on our social media channels

We are less likely to support you:

• with finding you a pool of young people to work with
• by doing the project ‘for’ you
• when you have already decided what you want the outcome to be when timeframes are not realistic

How do you recognise or reward young people who are involved in youth voice?

As a participation team, we offer rewards in the form of trips and outings. And for those who have made significant contributions to Youth Voice in Devon, we host an annual Youth Voice Awards night in April to recognise their dedication and input. If you know a young person who should be recognised at this event, do get in touch.

Although we cannot pay young people directly, we recommend that teams do offer a thank you gift for young people’s involvement. This can be in the form of a shopping voucher purchased by the team in question. This is particularly relevant for interview panels and focus groups that are adult-initiated.

We are developing a ‘digital badge’ accreditation system through which young people can accumulate badges for youth voice activity then exchange them for a reward. This is still in process but we aim to have it up and running by April 2025.

Do we have to go through the participation team support young people to have their views heard?

Not at all. We are always happy to support or advise but if you are in a position where you can do this yourself, we encourage you to do so. We recommend these youth voice approaches:

• Surveys (but do check if any other teams have done one on a similar topic recently so that we are not duplicating questions. Also consider whether you can make an easy-read or widgit version of the survey)
• Focus groups (remember the Lundy Model to make these successful)
• 1-2-1 conversations
• Peer research programmes
• Art or music workshops (but be transparent if you are intending to use these to find out young people’s views)
• Advocacy (for individual youth voice)
• Mind of My Own and the Single feedback form (for individual youth voice)
• Young people presenting at events – it is important that this is meaningful to the young person otherwise it could be tokenistic.
• If you are someone who supports youth participation in your team, you might like to consider joining the participation workers network so that we can support one another, share ideas and ensure that Devon young people’s voices are amplified through the Devon Youth Council Network.

We want some young people to form an interview panel; can you help?

If you would like young people to be part of an interview panel, this works best if you know the young people – but we also have this guidance made by young people. If appropriate, we can support young people from our Youth Council network to get involved if they are interested.

I know a young person who has some important views to share but they would be too shy or anxious to join a group of people they don’t know

Our team will be happy to meet any young person on a 1-2-1 basis or with you as their trusted adult. They may just want to share their views once but if they seem interested in getting involved, our team members will support them in whatever way they feel comfortable. Some young people just follow our Instagram, others attend occasional social activities, others want to jump right in with youth council activity. We are very flexible around their needs.

How do young people know if they are making a difference through the participation team?

• Public facing action tracker to track progress on young people’s top priorities
• Invitations to decision makers to attend council meetings to feedback in person
• Instagram and WhatsApp groups
• Bi-annual digital newsletter to young people in care/ leaving care.
• Digital newsletter sent out every other month to Devon Youth Council members
• Annual report with case studies
• See our strategy document for examples of recent case studies
• If you know a young person who has been impacted by a positive system change, please do let us know so that we can celebrate this with our network

I am a decision-maker or Council member, how can I get involved with youth participation? What do young people expect from my involvement?

• If you are a decision-maker or Council member, you will be invited to Youth Voice events or Youth Council meetings when the topic is relevant to their role and when young people have prepared to speak with you. The top areas of youth voice focus are detailed in the strategy and will be updated every year.
• If an issue has come to your attention from an external source and you would like to explore it in more depth with our Youth Council, please contact participation@devon.gov.uk so that you can have an initial discussion with a member of our team. We work hard to avoid young people having to repeat themselves so we may already have feedback on the issue you are researching.
• If you meet with young people to explore a topic, it is expected that you will take responsibility for feeding back to young people on the actions you plan to take as a result of hearing their views. This may be an ongoing piece of co-production with a group of young people or it may be an issue that you need to address in a different way.
• If you have been invited to a youth voice event, it is expected that you will prioritise this in your calendar and respond to the invitation, including any follow up events.
• If you intend to work collaboratively with our care-experienced young people through the SUSU council or are focusing on an issue raised by the SUSU council, we request that you first attend an in-person Total Respect Training course delivered by care-experienced young people. These courses are delivered to a group, min size 5; max 15.