Youth Engagement

Examples of Youth Engagement in Action
Youth Engagement Resources
Youth Voting Rights

Examples of Youth Engagement in Action

• Germany: The city of Regensburg has woven children’s rights throughout its policies, practices, and structures, including having a comprehensive plan to encourage the participation of young people in policy decisions that affect them. One specific project relied upon input from local children in the urban planning and development process aimed at improving and expanding an existing neighborhood in a child-friendly way. Visit the city’s website to learn more about this initiative and others.

• San Jose, California: As the official advisory group to the mayor and city council, the City of San Jose Youth Commission is a group of 11 youth (ages 14 to 20) who make recommendations on policy that impact young people in their community. The commission also empowers young people to be civically engaged as well as supports and promotes opportunities to marginalized youth communities. 

• Kentucky: The Kentucky Student Voice Team is a group of youth, with a team of adult allies, working to improve their communities and schools through active participation in policy, research, and storytelling. For example, they successfully advocated for the inclusion of a student representative on the Kentucky Board of Education and launched the youth-run The New Edu, an education journalism publication which centers student perspectives. 

• United Kingdom: UK Youth Parliament includes more than 300 young people (ages 11 to 18) who are elected as Members of Youth Parliament (MYPs) to represent the views of their peers. It provides young people opportunities to create meaningful social change by bringing them into the policymaking and parliamentary process. 

• Examples from UNICEF: Case studies from UNICEF Country Offices in Nepal, Belize, Turkey, and Ethiopia offer examples of child participation in local governance. The Child Friendly Cities Initiative provides guidance and suggestions for how children and young people can participate in decisions involving their lives as well as good practices from existing initiatives.

  See examples from Kids Impact Initiative where young people impacted policy decisions through the use of child & youth impact statements (CYIAs). 

Youth Engagement Resources

• Fact Sheet: Engaging Youth: A Key Ingredient of Effective Youth Impact Assessments, Kids Impact Initiative 
• Youth-Friendly Child Impact Statement Toolkit, Kids Impact Initiative and UNICEF USA
• Achieving Authentic Youth Engagement: Core Values & Guiding Principle, Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Youth Infusion, from advocate Wendy Lesko, highlights organizations that are including youth in their work in meaningful ways and champions intergenerational collaboration to recognize the invaluable contributions of young people. See their list of top 25 resources with practical guidance for helping organizations work with youth more effectively. 
• Authentic Youth Engagement, Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Guides to Help Organizations Build Effective Youth Engagement Programs, CLA Center for the Developing Adolescent
• How to be child-centred, New Zealand Children’s Commissioner 
• Tip Sheets for Adults, Adolescents and Youth on Adolescent and Youth Participation in Different Settings, UNICEF
• Opportunity Youth United
• Student Voice
• Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety and the Policymaker Toolkit, which
  guides policymakers and decision-makers on how to meaningfully engage and involve young people.
• Video highlighting mentoring as an experience that centers youth, with an emphasis on race, ethnicity, class, citizenship, gender, and sexuality, Critical Mentoring

Youth Voting Rights

• Oakland Youth Vote is a coalition of youth and adult allies that supports 16- and 17-year-old students in Oakland, California, in exercising their rights to vote and in holding local school districts accountable.
• Voting Age, National Youth Rights Association 
• Efforts by and Examples at the Federal, State, and International Level to Lower the Voting Age, National Youth Rights Association
• Vote16USA, National Campaign that supports efforts to extend voting rights to 16-and 17-year-olds
• The Surprising Consequence of Lowering the Voting Age, by Jens Olav Dahlgaard in The Washington Post
• Children’s Voting Colloquium is a global collaboration of researchers, activists, child-led and adult-led organizers, policymakers, and others dedicated to eliminating voting discrimination according to young people’s age.