Mountains and Molehills Sharing good practice in youth participation

Hello again everyone! Welcome to the full (and therefore quite long!) write-up of our practice-sharing weekend at Lockerbrook earlier this month. We really enjoyed meeting you all and working with you to share ideas, and we’re very grateful to you for spending two challenging days with us. We’re determined to make everyone’s hopes of staying in touch and continuing the inspiring conversations come true, so below is a list of contact details. Do stay in touch :) If you have any extra memories from the weekend you’d like to add, or want to amend something in the report, just let me know.

Name Organisation Email

Emma Jarvis Envision emmaj@envision.org.uk

Jay Birdi Envision jaybirdi@hotmail.com

Dom Stevenson Envision dominicst@live.com

Ali Thomas Platform51 ali.thomas@platform51.org

Kerry Richards Platform51 kerry.richards@platform51.org

Lauren Wright Platform51 Via Ali Thomas

Shane Baker Sheffield Futures shane.baker@sheffieldfutures.org.uk

Zac Russell Sheffield Youth Council zacharyrussell@hotmail.co.uk

Kevin Jones Young Advisors kev@youngadvisors.org.uk

Jessica Greenhough Young Advisors jessica_greenhough@hotmail.co.uk

Adam Bradford Young Advisors adam.bradford@mt.com

Jo Banham NDCS joanna.banham@ndcs.org.uk

Andrew Clarke NDCS Via Jo Banham

Ellen Arthur NDCS Via Jo Banham

Ashley Simpson Co-operative College ashley_simpson@hotmail.co.uk

Julie Thorpe Co-operative College Julie@co-op.ac.uk

Emma Chadwick NCVYS emma@ncvys.org.uk

Alex Farrow Practical Participation alexjames.farrow@gmail.com

Our challenges and ideas for solving them: p3-5 Bored Meeting workshop: p6 Young Advisors workshop: p7 A to Z of Good Discussion and evening workshops: p8 Platform51 campaign workshop: p9 Leading for the Future resource: p10 Co-operative Schools workshop: p11 Open Space write-up: p11-13 Offline Twitter feed: p14 Final ideas, conclusions and looking to the future p15 who was there

Verity Jones Woodcraft Folk verity.jones@woodcraft.org.uk

Jack Brown Woodcraft Folk jack.brown@woodcraft.org.uk

Chloë Darlington Woodcraft Folk chloe.darlington@woodcraft.org.uk

Francis Atkinson Woodcraft Folk francis@atkinsons.myzen.co.uk

Polina Aleksandrova Woodcraft Folk / EVS polina.aleksandrova@woodcraft.org.uk

Ellie Ferguson Woodcraft Folk Young Trainer ellie-ferguson@live.co.uk

Alice Hewson Woodcraft Folk Young Trainer alice.hewson@hotmail.co.uk

Rob Sandy Woodcraft Folk Young Trainer robotcoprob@hotmail.com

Ruth O’Sullivan Woodcraft Folk Young Trainer ruth_18@hotmail.co.uk

Cadan Ap Tomos Woodcraft Folk cadan@gwerin.org

Jon Nott Woodcraft Folk jon.nott@woodcraft.org.uk

The agenda for the weekend included:

A taster of Bored Meeting training for young people joining teams /

committees

A workshop from Young Advisors on their methods of youth leadership

Practice in group discussion techniques

with Woodcraft’s Young Trainers

A workshop on Amnesty International’s youth engagement

Activities used to train mentors in

Woodcraft Folk

Campaigning activities with Platform51

A taste of the new youth leadership resource, Leading For The Future

The story of the first co-operative school

from one of its first pupils

what we did We also got a really useful and fun taster of communicating without using our voices, to help us make sure the weekend was accessible to our young deaf participants. Ordering ourselves into one long line according to our birthdays and then according to our names wasn’t too difficult to do without talking, but reading the lips of someone mouthing the words ‘cook’ and ‘path’ was almost impossible—there are so many similar words! Ellen and Andrew asked us to speak clearly, one at a time, to help them lip-read and to help our palantypists Rhiannon and Rachel to type everything we said.

Ask them how they usually communicate with each other Have ‘theme’ weeks to focus thoughts and encourage ideas Using a social networking as a platform so it’s easier talking to a group, notifications from it could moti-vate or remind them to do something. Have training in non f2f comms We use text lists to distribute important info + contact between meetings. We have a dedicated yp phone for safeguarding and use sign-up to create lists to send texts to large groups. Decide a way you all going to communicate phone, email or FB. Highly recommended FB for older & email for younger. Always stick to this communication, FB secret groups are great. Safe places to have informal dis-cussions, share pics and docs. A way for yp to communicate with friends. MAKE SURE THERE IS TRAINING

Involving a national group of younger young people (under 15) in continuing with ideas and decisions outside of meeting when many are not used to non-face to face communication on a sustained and regular basis.

How do you maintain enthusiasm for youth participation on a local level?

Reflection sessions Social activities Regular events Online forms / discussions so yp stay engaged after meetings/events Ensure yp lead steer the group Do not be tokenistic Ensure minutes are sent out with action points so people know what’s expected of them Make sure there’s an element of fun after all they’re still young Ensure rewarded events / activities/residentials Enough training & development Calendar of events so young people know well in advance plans Feedback & evaluations

Recruiting young people and keeping them interested

Overcoming policies we (young people) disagree with. Namely an over-dependent policy of teens doing too much for younger people on camps. – Has culminated in a boycott from 15—20 yr olds.

Encourage a two way working relationship to help inspire young people and delegate responsibility to younger people to share responsibilities Ensure where possible the young people take lead on what ever needs doing, even a phone call. Workers to facilitate. Delegate and empower young people to do things themselves. Try to encourage a working relationship to help young people and share responsibilities

Engaging with young people in the North as NCVYS is London based

Move events around lots -->expenses/fare pool Travel to different event places Regional web pages and FB-/Twitter accounts Find a great venue in the north for inspiring meetings/residentials Regional network feeding into regular social events, options of training and signposting to other opps in local area I attend groups in London and I would say it’s about yp wanting to attend and staff going up North and talking to young people Have regional support network run by people in the North for people in the North Good contacts with Youth Service & volunteer sections, send updates, e-bulletins and set them to share on their social media. Do marketing campaign & have a better presence

We shared our challenges, and offered our ideas on how others could solve theirs. There were common themes of ensuring young people can participate consistently from region to region and locally as well as nationally: we’re all helping young people participate, but we want to make sure it’s fair, ongoing and effective, not just tokenistic or patchy.

Get together maybe once a moth with activities It’s really important to have a good diary of meeting, events, opportunities for training & development. If you do not have the above you’re likely not to get commitment & lose focus of the group’s reason for existence, which might be giving a poor service to those it supports in the city Clear actions and roles so people feel useful Celebrate the difference the group has made Outline exactly why YP should get valued / involved with the programme. What will they get out of it? My group is called A.C.E. which stands for ‘About Care Experience’. It’s like a youth council for YP that have been in children’s home or fostered. We try & make being in care a better experience for future YP.

Make their involvement relevant to them and a real sharing of power Team them up with older YP so they don’t feel overwhelmed Accessible activities and resources that are young people friendly Involving students with events outside of their usual sessions can strengthen re-lationships Ensure they’re good linked with schools and youth clubs Make sure that you reward the group for positive work and do fun sessions/stuff Make sure the group is YP lead and what is needed in the city Do events and consultation to allow others to get involved

Young people elected onto a regional steering committee aren’t coming to meetings, replying to e-mails etc. often enough to ensure smooth running of the council. How do we re-engage them and keep them on board?

Events or new challenges could help inspire & motivate these young people Emails are old school - I use FB or Twitter. Addition to that: private groups great for confidential conversation ensuring + safeguarding. Quote ‘working where YP are @ is youth work’ Buddies—everyone’s responsible for informing + bringing someone else Ensure that those elected clearly know the expectations & how to go about stepping down. Ensure it’s easy to pass on apologises & have a set procedure to deal with those not engaging Make sure you plan & calendar events and ensure YP have a copy-maybe provide diaries Ensure you do session evaluations & send anonymous feedback forms with SA envelopes so people can be more honest Skype/phone to reconnect in a time where responses are instant

During YC & UKYP we find it hard to get schools & colleges to push the importance of voting and having themselves represented at local, city, regional, national level. We have tried an award for 50% vote, 70% & 90%. I think they forget the importance of empowering YP to have a voice out of educational establishment.

Give examples of common issues that yp face in order to engage them

Make sure it is young people telling the schools that it is important and why

SF go talk to governing bodies of schools and ask them to get schools involved Maybe invest in a more formal election process (e.g. ideas of national democracy) in order to educate young people and inspire them to take to the stand and vote Run workshops on the importance of voting. Often young people don’t make a link between issues that affect them and politics—need to make politics seen fun, interesting and relevant to the yp

Finding the young people who need or want mentors.

Make contacts to youth services, schools, colleges, specialise group Make a leaflet with info on reference process Sell your service youth friendly Give examples Make sure the pairing up is what both parties are happy with Maybe mentor isn’t the right word when engaging young people? Why can’t they articulate what a mentor is and why they would want one? Start by focussing on the issues and then introduce the idea of a mentor rather than other way round? Through following new activity/change People often need specific support so make clear the offer rather than generic

How do you embed new practices? We often try new things which work well but find ourselves slipping back into old habits that may be less inclusive, less fun or less productive.

Mentoring Transitions If people are reverting, don’t give in. Keep up the new practices, explain why Make sure it’s embedded into every day activities, perhaps have a wall with all the new stuff to keep refreshing, inform yp & make them aware. Perhaps new ways aren’t the best way. Make sure everyone agrees to the changes & someone enforces it Reflect on why you slip back into old ways. When it gets hard? How can you notice this and overcome it?

Young people don’t feel empowered to make change or do things differently

Show them changes they or others have made Use case studies and examples of people like them have achieved: video and photos are great Young people need to be empowered through youth workers to open up about their thoughts Young people always have a passion which should be voiced where appropriate. Make them aware that their voice will be heard.

Platform 51: We are a national organisation who have brought loads of young women together to have a national, collective voice. How can we maintain joined up practice and embed participation with no money to come together?

Buddies/mentors/twinning between groups/centres to share practice from one to another Online presence! Ensure that feedback, things happening etc is shared with one another. If you become isolated you will not share good practice which will be wasted

How to get more younger people into youth participation and also maintaining strong bonds and friendships?

Small grant fund allocated by youth panel

Get involved with LAC’s

Teams have great ideas but struggle to maintain motivation to carry out their plans.

Get them to make goals to achieve, see if they achieved it at the end Set realistic targets and time scales Show them the results of every-thing they do-tangible outputs from previous discussions-so they knew they’re making progress and being heard Help provide support and re-sources in order to motivate them to participate as a team, comms sup-port Lots of small steps=big achieve-ments Why do they lose motivation is the real question, ask? Perhaps workers aren’t support-ing them with action planning and suggesting ideas(who to contact etc). Action plan, goal set and get a leader

Envision: we want young people to be involved in the decision making process of the organisation but often struggle to ensure they are informed enough about our strategy(+ jargon) to enable them to be effective participants in the discussion.

Simple ‘jargon-busting’ techniques as and when complex terms are used Nitty-gritty strategy & jargon are part of the process—so don’t force it - some young people will be interested, not all If your organisation is for young people shouldn’t it be very much youth-led & friendly? The strategy should be straight forward. Make sure you put packs of info together from previous meetings-send meeting outcomes via email/post to keep updated

Recruitment-encouraging new young people from local schools/youth clubs to become involved. Little understanding about what woodcraft is about if you haven’t been brought up in the organisation.

Free taster events run by & for young people Run a project in the school / YC to gain interest Taster sessions Speakers who have participated in the programme Articulate in recruitment why they would want to get involved. What can they get out of the opportunity? Make sure youth friendly, precise and jargon free

Struggling to get participation in a 16-20 year old’s Woodcraft Folk group in my local area. How do I encourage yp to join?

Clearly outline what they will get out of it in recruitment materials, e.g. will they gain new skills? If so, what skills—spell out how these will be useful in the future Are there any leadership opportunities? What support is available for them? (workshops etc.) + use reflection sessions to reflect=articulate what they have achieved so they still feel excited by it. Go back to your current members—ask them what’s appealing, what are the key marketing points? Fresh and creative ideas! See if they would be interested in mentoring peers Does your group have youth friendly publicity, fb, flyers, posters? Have you contacted youth services, schools? Have you done assemblies to talk about what you’ve done? Is there a place where people can find out about joining? What got you involved, perhaps that’ll work again.

How to maintain integrity when undertaking participation work when working on programmes with pre-scribed targets or outcomes?

Focusing on pre-scribed targets doesn’t mean you can’t do other things Is there flexibility? Adapting materials+ resources+ events In this the ‘how’ is as important as the ‘what’. The outcomes might be set but young people can be part of designing the process of achieving them Prescription is the backbone, however it should be youth lead and be directed by them but sticking to the group main aims. Not all prescriptions work in other areas. Nothing can be stuck in stone.

How can I encourage more 13-15 year olds to run activities for their peers and get involved in national woodcraft? How can I help to reduce the dropout rate of 16 year olds in Woodcraft?

Offer mentor support Host a facilitation training weekend Reduce drop out by explaining how staying involved will benefit them. What new things can you offer? Leading for the future Remain engaged with their key issues. Utilise social networking and apps Re-engagement presentations can help to reduce drop out. Plus clarify what they gain from the pro-gramme, such as skills, relate to personal statements

NDCS: -Engaging with young people online -Meeting the needs of every deaf child -Getting everyone together, sharing information

Ensure the brand is well published: Facebook, Twitter, Publications

Make links with youth services so they can spread the words to deaf yp in their communities

Ensure to have regional meetings which are inclusive for all Give the right training/support

NDCS: Supporting young people to make change in their local area

Ruth and Cadan introduced us to Bored Meeting—a set of activities to help people of all ages work well on teams and committees Ruth and Cadan explained that Bored Meeting activities were developed to improve skills, lessen the intimidating aspect of democratic processes and help people make decisions well. An early stage of the process is getting to know your team. We imagined a map of the UK on the floor of the room and stood at the place we identified as home. Finding we had something in common with the people standing near us was a good way to start. Then we came up with a list of all sorts of teams, and split into small groups to work out what would make a particular team perfect. We found a lot of similarities in our perfect teams, regardless of whether it was a group of flatmates, a football team or the UN! Next was 'making the case', where everybody made a 30 second manifesto speech on a topic of somebody else's choosing. These were fascinating (topics included: human rights, improve-ment of subtitle provision and quality, Fruji Milkshakes, homelessness, the history of maths, the global food system, looked after children, the negative image of young people in the media and Exeter football club). Everyone rose to the challenge and we heard a lot of impassioned and persuasive speeches. We reflected that when you’re representing others, you want time to do your research and get to understand how they feel. It can be interesting but also disempowering to hear someone else speaking on your behalf. Finally, we imagined being given £150 to spend in a local youth centre. Each group had a selection of options (such as social enterprise, an event, stocks and shares, glitter and glue, a day of participation and inclusiveness training, subsidising a trip). It is possible to make a group decision without voting! Consensus and open minded debate were, in the main, the most successful methods. We discussed the criteria used to make decisions in these kind of discussions – it’s a natural process but sometimes need to be made explicit. to ensure everyone is involved fairly and knows what process is being used.

“Really good to be talking to other organisations and finding common

ground and values” - feedback on the weekend

Young people have a unique set of skills and knowledge, which is marketable and can be applied to change services and communities for the better. Early on Kevin told us the Young Advisors model of youth participation is controversial, and that he was happy to be grilled by anyone who wanted to challenge it! First of all, a ‘brain energiser’ exploring ‘What if...?’ situations, which Young Advisors are encouraged to do frequently in their interaction with businesses. In groups we explored hypothetical situations such as What if we were in a Utopia? and What if there were no hypothetical questions? Utopia turned out to be less fun than you would think! The idea for Young Advisors came out of a government regeneration programme, where places defined as deprived had a lot of money offered to them for services which HAD to be run by members of the community. Many of these services were for young people—so it made sense to create an initiative where young people had a say on the development of the services. Young Advisors is based on the principle that young people have a unique set of skills, specific to them:

they’re less attached to the past they have energy and enthusiasm more time in the community than any

other age group you can find out more about a

neighbourhood from a young person young people have contact with 'hard to

reach young people' they know all about the services they use

(care, criminal justice, youth groups) - and that this knowledge is worth something. Teams of Young Advisors can therefore market their skills and knowledge, and be paid as consultants, rather than asking, ‘please involve us’.

Young Advisors get at least two days guided training, and the skills they need to go into organisations and change them. They use a Social Action model, asking What, Why, How, and looking at possible actions and reflections. Kevin suggested using Alesha Dixon’s ’The Boy Does Nothing’ (which probably got stuck in quite a few heads for the rest of the weekend!) as a way to explore the social action model: Does he wash up? (No) Does he brush up? (No). Adam and Jessica gave an interesting presentation about their work as Young Advisors in Sheffield, where they made a sexual health service more accessible and effective for young people. Adam and Jess are part of a Gold Team, meaning they get paid directly for their work. There are also Bronze, teams, who work voluntarily, and Silver, where the client makes a donation to a central pot of money. For those of us who might be wary of the commercial aspect of Young Advisors’ work—it was young people themselves who asked to work voluntarily :) We were all inspired by their work and had more questions than there was time to answer—so do keep in touch with Young Advisors!

“My favourite memory is buying a hat in the shape of the Loch Ness Monster”

- Andrew

C is for Consensus, and V is for Veto... Rob and Alice introduced everyone to the A to Z of Good Discussion, a guide to making group discussions fair and effective, produced by 16—20 year olds in Woodcraft. (If you’d like more copies of the A to Z, just let us know. It’s available online here: www.spanthatworld.com/a-to-z-of-good-discussion) We used a few different methods to explore good discussion techniques, all of which got us arguing passionately with each other, even for things we didn’t agree with, which was a useful challenge. It was suggested at the end of the weekend that this short workshop should be used at the start of every event :) Particularly fun was speed-debating, and also taking sides for the mock debate on whether Jaffa Cakes are cakes or biscuits. Using serious topics in the speed debate made us empathise with views we wouldn’t usually consider, and using a fun topic in the mock debate allowed us to practise disagreeing quite strongly without upsetting people we’d just become friends with! The question of whether you can dip a cake in your tea got quite contentious...

Ellie ran an evening workshop about Amnesty International, using a game of piggy in the middle to get people thinking about human rights. Everyone made kites to symbolise support for Afghan women, who are denied many of their rights including the popular sport of kite-flying. This is Ellie above, dressed as a dictator (makes you wonder why any of them bother with something as boring as a uniform...)

Verity gave us a taster of the activities she uses to train Mentors at Woodcraft Folk, who are crucial in supporting young people to take on leadership roles. Our communication skills were tested by a series of drawing tasks, where a volunteer described a picture for us to draw without saying exactly what the picture was. On our first try, we couldn’t ask any questions, and a few of us produced drawings that didn’t match the volunteer’s picture at all! A second round with ‘closed’ questions gave us more opportunity to get the information we needed, and a third round with ‘open’ questions proved that you need a combination of both question types to get a full understanding of any picture.

Saturday evening

“10 – 12 year olds taught me to build a co-operative upside-down

camp fire and bake bread on it” - Verity

Many women are prescribed anti-depressants in their teens and twenties, and never get the chance to explore alternative treatments. Platform51 took us on their campaign journey to their campaign exploring mental health issues. After a presentation about the history of Platform51 and their name change from YWCA, Ali, Kerry and Lauren introduced us to one of their mental health campaigns, looking into the issue of women and anti-depressants. We explored the first steps, like choosing the topic according to case studies, as well as their work in centres across the country. A part of the campaign’s action was a visit by young women to the Houses of Parliament, where they told their stories and ran a game activity which we got to take part in at

first hand. The game consists of 2 types of action cards that tell the story of Layla, a character based on true personal experiences. The colourful cards are read out and discussed in the group, then a black and white card is read out but isn’t discussed - it builds a kind of a bridge inside the story. At the end, participants (us, and we’re sure the MPs too) are more aware about the importance of sensitizing as many people as possible to mental health issues and their appropriate treatment.

Once we’d heard how a good campaign works, we grouped in our organisations to plan our own campaign. Platform51 gave us a helpful balloon metaphor that focussed our thoughts on possible actions, resources and barriers. This model contains questions like: what helps a campaign lift off? what keeps it tied down? what might blow us off course? and who should be on board? Every group presented their topic and action plan, and each one looked ready to take off immediately: - subtitling provision for educational videos - votes for 16 and 17 year olds - fighting negative stereotypes of young people - promoting mental health services in Sheffield To conclude, everyone was encouraged by Platform51 to sign the petition for the periodical review of antidepressant prescriptions.

“Small briefing on all charities / organisations

at start” - suggestion for next time

Leading for the Future: leadership isn’t about meetings and figureheads, it’s about teamwork and social change. Alex from Practical Participation explained how this new resource came into being. It’s a collaboration between participation workers with experience from communities around the world, and Woodcraft members of all ages. The aim is to help groups of young people create a vision for action they want to take in their group, community or country—and develop the skills to take that action. Ruth, who is 16, was involved in making sure the activities in this 12-session resource work for young people, and is now starting to run it with her own group. It has four units, moving gradually outwards from looking at your own team to working with others in your area, and every unit suggests practical steps you can take to put your skills to use. There’s a log designed by young people, for keeping track of your progress. We broke up into 4 groups and each tried an activity from each of the four modules. The activities were fairly easy to pick up and run, without much equipment or background knowledge, but needed some imagination to put them into practice in our temporary teams—they’ll make more sense if you run them within your organisation. We all fed back on what the activities were and how it felt to be a part of them / what were the strengths (and weaknesses – although nobody mentioned any!) of the resource. We’d welcome feedback if you use any Leading for the Future activities in your organisation. Participants were then invited to break off into our organisations to discuss the relevance of the resource for them. Platform51 are keen to use it already :) It was noted that having the resource explained was a much easier way to get your head around it than just reading it through, so Alex was requested to be interviewed for a 3 minute video to accompany the downloadable resource on the Woodcraft Folk website. A (very rough and ready) film is now online: http://vimeo.com/39052121.

“My favourite memory from Envision is shaving my hair off

and raising £300” - Dom

In the workshop from the Co-operative College we got to know what Co-operative Schools are and heard a moving personal experience from Ash, whose school made the transition. At first Julie asked everyone to consider what a co-operative was. We discussed our ideas and compared them to a widely accepted definition of a co-operative. We got to know the history of co-operatives and co-operation in this context Julie displayed a video explaining the motivation and success of the first British co-operative, which started in 1844 in Rochdale. (here’s the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYPe5xJAm5w).

Then Ash gave a very inspiring account of how his school moved from being a struggling school (with a GCSE pass rate of 40%) through the process of becoming a co-operative school. A cumbersome but definitely worthwhile process of changing the structures, inspiring the pupils and getting all the relevant bodies on board. The co-operative school movement is growing! Starting in 2007, there are now more than 200 Co-operative Schools across the country.

Co-operation is fun! We got a great sense of togetherness and mutual responsibility from playing ‘4 up’: a co-operative activity which only allows 4 people standing at any moment for a maximum of 30 seconds, without any speaking. We found we had to pay close attention to each other’s facial expressions and try to tell when people were about to sit down or stand up. The workshop was finished by a short discussion of the problems faced by the co-operative movement, which ran into casual discussions over lunch and helped inform the spirit of our Open Space session after lunch.

“Fun, informative, challenging and inspiring, GREAT FOOD”

- feedback on the weekend

Open Space – an accessible way to hold discussions on a really broad theme We used Open Space to give people the chance to discuss anything under the umbrella of youth par-ticipation – things that had come up over the weekend, things that hadn’t got a mention at all, questions from the small and specific to grand and philosophical. Full notes of the dis-cussions are on the following two pages. (People & Planet do a nice guide to Open Space here: http://peopleandplanet.org/goinggreener/skills/using-open-space ) There were a handful of issues we didn’t get round to... Changing the perception that youth participation is only for vulnerable young people How to engage more young people in participation / e-participation If you have ideas and answers on these, feel free to email them round the group so the person who raised the issue can benefit.

Open Space notes

Challenge of working with a wide age range (8 – 18): how can we address this? (Jo, NDCS) A younger and older board? = better participation Natural limits of younger people Younger people engaged at a more local level Different roles for different members? Case studies? Local – national key link! LOGISTICS Mentoring from previous members Get parents on board Accessibility Workshops around own experiences as a basis Interacting with younger people – how??

How to involve children in care in your organisation? (Zac) Advertisement Organisations seek out LACs It doesn’t matter about how many people Orgs like Woodcraft Folk could:

Communicate with care homes re curfews Talk to Social Workers Make sure you work with parents too School Word of mouth Youth Centres Children’s Care Council – and ask

them to promote WCF in EVERY CITY

What factors limit genuine youth participation (in trusts, charities..) ? (Julie) Limiting factors: Perceptions of what participation means Vested interests Funding Time Adults’ (teachers’) fear of change and lack of interest Conflict with organisational values

Strategies [to address these] Living policies – recognise young people’s situations Network for senior managers Training for young people Quotas Teacher training Social return on investment audit

Create an evidence base National research project

Young people shouting about it eg videos etc (benefit to them and society)

Is ‘representative’ participation (youth fora etc) reinforcing imbalances of power? (“youthwash”) (Kevin) They tend to report back to an authority. How can we encourage negotiation and partnership? Youth Councils: Yes it does / can! Mirror adult structures Adult initiated ideas Is one form of democracy Reached a limit of [?] Need true participation and representative democracy

Organisations do this well but not society – WCF groups, Co-op Schools Review, monitoring and evaluation, impact – no space for review Reviewing structures Depends on the culture Encourage negotiation and partnership Training – for team members and adults

Do we have the adequate structures and mechanisms in place to enact our degree of social change? We enact change in our co-operative community. Is this the same as social change ? have we lost the need or fight for social change? We have the structures, but to what extent are they effective? The scale of change & scale of interests / groups Collaboration

Numbers Partnership

Convergent co-operation – from the top as well as bottom up Not exploiting our mechanisms No surprise Crowded market Spread the idea of ‘co-operative year’ virally – promote using simple ways Yes! We have the structures and mechanisms, it’s just much slower than we would want Society has changed – is this proof? -Overthrowing capitalism doesn’t need resources, structure, mechanisms… JUST PEOPLE!

Mountains&Molehills The offline Twitter feed (complete with bird feeder—thanks Simon) Cadan ap Tomos@violacadan 10:23am Busy setting up, waiting for people to arrive! #wcf mm Outside the view looks surreal! NDCS_UK YAB members just arrived in the peaks for the @ Woodcraft Folk #youthparticipation event @mountainmolehill. Excited #wcfmm Cadan ap Tomos @violacadan Surprised at how hard “I have five red apples” is to lip-read! Thanks @NDCS_UK #wcfmm @sheffieldya @sheffieldukyp @sheffieldyc Please follow&RT us. Retweeted by @violacadan Woodcraft Folk @woodcraftfolk 3:41pm Lots of common challenges, should be good discussion #wcfmm Half through the day@MountainMolehil. Looking at what makes a team, representation and priority setting #youthparticipation #WCFMM I don’t use twitter but just to say an alright day so far and good meeting ppl. Good presentation, curry soon. Enjoying my time with @Platform51 #Woodcraft Folk “MPs are like lions & tigers—you have to see them in their own environment” from @Platform51

Cadan ap Tomos@violacadan 10:23am Planning our own @votesat16 campaign with @platform51. Hope @woodcraftfolk can get it off the ground! #wcfmm We are coming to the end of the weekend, had a great time, we’ll miss it! @MountainsMolehill@NDCS_UK Verity: Sun shining too much for presentations—blooming Northern weather! : P Jack: Open space at sunny Lockerbrook, how does your youth participation work? #wcfmm Jay_Birdi Just got stuck to the ‘sticky wall’…suspicious at how it’s so sticky @envisionuk—some great ideas for icebreakers and tools we can use for our sessions with young people! Finally a way of measuring just how dynamic our discussions are…360 strokes/minute on a palantypist’s keyboard - apparently that’s fast!

“My favourite memory is setting up the country’s first co-operative

school and letting kids govern their school”

- Ash

How would you involve an 11 year old?

Share the agenda in advance

Use lots of different activities, and lots of breaks and food!

Be clear what you are trying to achieve Avoid jargon – keep it simple!

Find out what you enjoy and want to achieve. I

would find a suitable / relevant group for you to join and support you to integrate into the group.

Break into small groups at times but make sure you

feed back.

young people’s participation for a stronger fairer future

Thank you for some really positive feedback on the practice-sharing weekend, and lots of good ideas for improving the next one we do. We’ll be sure to invite you along!

We confirmed at the end of the weekend that all these expectations had been met by at least one

person. We’re all enthusiastic about staying in touch and making sure the ‘first of many’ and ‘making new

friends’ hopes come true.

… reflect | plan | collaborate | act … Some of the actions we said we’d take

after the event:

Adapt and roll out Leading for the Future programme in co-operative schools!

Make sure that all of our videos are subtitled in future

Use Kevin's “What if…” activity in training sessions

Use games, ice breakers and toolkit with our yp.

Help the Steering Group to create memory books