Michelle Blanchard, Senior Research Officer, Inspire
Foundation and PhD Candidate, Orygen Youth Heath Research
Centre
We know that involving young people in service planning,
delivery and evaluation results in services that are more
effective, relevant and able to meet young people's needs.
There can also be significant benefits for the young people
involved who may develop new skills, become more confident and
experience a sense of self efficacy. There are some excellent
resources available to support professionals who work with young
people to practice youth participation face to face, but how do we
effectively utilise technology to involve young people in making
decisions to inform the services they access?
The principles of youth participation remain the same - regardless
of whether the engagement with young people takes place online or
offline.
These principles include:
- Empowerment: young people have greater control over their
lives through participation
- Purposeful engagement: young people taking on valued
roles, addressing issues that are relevant to them and influencing
real outcomes
- Inclusiveness: ensuring that all young people are able to
participate (Office for Youth and Youth Affairs Council of
Victoria, 2003)
Providing access is available, technology enables young people to
participate in more flexible ways. For example, a young
person who may not be able to make it to meetings or workshops face
to face due to mobility issues, may be able to contribute online
from their own home. Similarly a young person with caring
responsibilities who is unable to leave the home during the day
without respite being provided, may be able to participate online
out of hours.
Some strategies others have found useful to foster participation
include:
- Establishing secure online forums and conducting structured or
unstructured online discussions on issues relating to service
planning. These forums can also be utilised by young people
to plan actions they would like to undertake or plan their
involvement in service delivery.
- Utilising a private group on Facebook to allow young pople to
provide feedback on a service or policy
- Empowering young people to blog (either by writing or posting
photographs or video content) about issues they care about as an
advocacy strategy
- Conducting workshops with young people to skill them in digital
storytelling and multimedia production
- Supporting young people to facilitate peer support forums to
improve the well-being of their peers.
How have you effectively utilised technology to foster youth
participation?
Resources