Being accountable and transparent

2.5

Following up with change: Being accountable and transparent

Youth participation in youth information services is about enabling young people to influence and create change. In any participation activity it is important to be transparent about the scope, purpose and potential impact or changes that the participation activity can lead to. Youth information services need to be accountable to the young people involved, showing clearly how and where they have made changes based on the views expressed by young people about youth information.

Accountability and transparency are especially important for youth participation activities that enable young people to express their views to youth information service decision makers. In these activities young people make recommendations and suggest ideas for change. There is an expectation that the decision makers act upon and try to implement these recommendations. This means approaching participation with a genuine commitment to acting on what young people say and taking their views into account.

However, even decision makers who are fully committed to listening to young people will not be able to take forward all of the ideas and suggestions made during a participation activity. There may be several reasons for this:

→ The decision makers involved may not have enough

authority - e.g. young people identify the need for a national law on youth information. The youth information service managers involved in the activity cannot implement this themselves, as only other government levels and legislators can make laws.

→ The decision makers involved may not have enough

budget and resources - e.g. young people suggest a new youth information centre should be built in the city centre. The youth information service managers involved in the activity agree, but do not have the budget for this.

→ There may be genuine problems with the ideas

suggested - e.g. young people suggest that TikTok should be used as the main channel for a new youth information campaign. The youth information service is government run and so is prevented from using

TikTok as it is run by Chinese State Media. Another factor is the time required to implement changes. This is especially the case for bigger more complex ideas. It can also be challenging to make change quickly when youth information services are based in public entities, which will be affected by a range of political priorities and agendas subject to change. Take the example above where the youth information service managers and young people both agree that a new youth information centre should be built. The youth information service managers could begin to raise some funding for this, and eventually a new centre might be created. This process will take several years. This means that many young people involved in the original participation activity will not see the direct benefit of the changes. They may be too old to need youth information services by the time the centre is built!

Any participation activity needs to communicate several things clearly to the young people involved:

1. What is the scope and purpose of the activity?

Which topics and issues will the activity focus on?

Which topics and issues fall outside of the purpose of the activity?

2. What will happen to the things that young people say during the activity? How will these be communicated to decision makers? How do decision makers expect to use them?

3. What happened after the activity? What changes did decision makers make? What changes are being planned? Which changes are they unable to make and why?

giving feedback

“It’s important to provide feedback because this will determine if you will participate in another project, are you going to stay there and participate more? Let young people know what they have done. Tell them that they have participated in a project and the project has succeeded. Some results are thanks to them, because they made that happen. And it’s a moment in which you can tell people just be patient, because this is going to have a result, you can’t see it now, but in the future, you’re going to have these results. You have to make at least one meeting to motivate people and to make them remember that they are in this process.”

This can be achieved by creating a feedback loop. This involves clear communication before the activity about its scope and purpose, followed by feedback after the activity about how their views have been taken into account:

The feedback given to young people after an activity should be10 :

→ Full: Decision makers need to explain what they agreed and disagreed with about young people’s suggestions.

They need to outline how and when the ideas will be taken forward.

→ Friendly: The feedback should be communicated in a way that is youth-friendly and understandable.

→ Fast: Feedback needs to be delivered quickly after an activity.

→ Followed-up: The feedback should be part of a process of ongoing dialogue with further opportunities for young people to engage in youth participation activities.

Giving feedback

After the activity feedback is given to the participants and other young people about: 1.

The changes that were made or planned based on the results of the activity, 2. Which changes could not be implemented, and why.

Informing participants

Before make sure everyone is fully informed of:

1. The purpose of the activity, 2. The topic of the activity, 3. What changes can (and cannot) be realistically expected, 4. How young people’s views will be communicated to decision makers.

Youth participation feedback loop

Making decisions

Decision makers meaningfully engage with the results of the activity when taking decisions. In most case this will happen after the participation activity.

Communicating with decision makers

During or soon after the activity views and recommendations made by young people are communicated clearly to decision makers.

You can use the feedback planner tool on the next page to help plan what feedback you will need to give to young people after your participation activity.

10 This concept of Full, Friendly, Fast and Followed-up feedback is adapted from Lundy, L. (2018) ‘In defence of tokenism? Implementing children’s right to participate in collective decision-making’, Childhood, 25(3), pp. 340–354. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568218777292

Use this tool to keep track of how the views that young people give are acted upon by decision makers.

Suggestion or recommendation made by young people during the participation activity

Feedback planner

FEEDBACK FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

These three columns will tell what feedback needs to be given to young people.

Names of decision maker the recommendation was shared with Action the decision makers took

Areas that could not be acted upon by the decision maker, and reasons for this