How Can You Meaningfully Involve Youth?
Building a partnership with young people requires an understanding of personal views of young people and a willingness to change those perceptions if necessary. Adults may view young people as objects, recipients, or partners.* The Ladder of Youth Involvement, pictured below, illustrates the different relationships adults can choose to engage in with youth. Each rung of the ladder fits into one of the above-mentioned roles. As one moves closer towards the top, maximum youth involvement is approached, and a youth-adult partnership becomes a reality. Where are you on this ladder?
Ladder of Youth Involvement
| Step 9. Youth Initiated and Directed |
 |
| Step 8. Youth Initiated, Shared Decisions with Adults |
| Step 7. Youth and Adult Initiated and Directed |
| Step 6. Adult Initiated, Shared Decisions with Youth |
| Step 5. Consulted and Informed |
| Step 4. Assigned and Informed |
| Step 3. Tokenism |
| Step 2. Decoration |
| Step 1. Manipulation |
(Adapted from "Hart's Ladder" from "Youth Participation in Community Planning," a report of the American Planning Association Innovative Centre for Community and Youth Development. Available at: www.theinnovationcentre.org )
View of Youth Involvement |
Outcome |
Steps of the Ladder |
Youth as Objects
Adults know what is best for young people. |
Involves youth in adult-controlled situations at the discretion of adults. Young people's contributions are insignificant and underutilized. Young people maintain a powerless position. |
1. Manipulation
2. Decoration
3. Tokenism |
Youth as Recipients
Adults view youth participation as an experience that will be good for them. |
Creates an opportunity for young people to learn from the adult experts, which will help them when they become adult contributors. |
4. Assigned and informed
5. Consulted and informed
6. Adult initiated, shared decisions with youth |
Youth as Partners
Adults view youth as important contributors |
Encourages youth to become involved in all aspects of the organization, group, or project. Youth and adults share power and are equal partners in decision-making; both bring strengths, abilities, and expertise to the table. The system of care is youth-guided. |
7. Youth and adult initiated and directed
8. Youth initiated, shared decisions with adults
9. Youth initiated and directed |
Authentic Involvement is Key
When adults understand how they view young people it will help them to refrain from tokenizing youth Young people can be involved in many ways within systems of care, but how they are involved and the level of authentic partnership makes the difference. Involvement can range from manipulation as the lowest level of participation to youth initiated and directed involvement, the highest level of participation. Youth and youth coordinators strive for youth initiated and directed involvement. At this level, youth are making decisions, setting goals, and developing action strategies with the youth coordinator who is serving as the coach to encourage and empower youth, not to lead them.
In system of care work, communities vary in their level of youth involvement. The primary goal is to move beyond stages 1-5. Shifting youth involvement to stages 6-9 can be challenging, but it is necessary in achieving authentic youth involvement and becoming a youth-guided system of care. As youth involvement is maximized, adults' roles in working with youth are also evolving, from being mentors to becoming partners and coaches. It is essential for adults to eliminate traditional youth-adult relationships that are based on power imbalances. Youth may not have a degree but they are the professionals of their lives and like all professionals they deserve respect. An equal partnership between youth and adults must be formed in order for systems of care to be truly effective. It takes dedication and drive to support a youth-led movement and to instill or revive that passion in each other and in the community. Youth involvement works! By involving youth adults have the opportunity to be change agents in their communities and to make a lasting impact on the young people they serve.
For more information on youth involvement, please visit the TA Partnership website where Youth Involvement in Systems of Care: A Guide to Empowerment can be downloaded. This guide was developed by Lorrin McGinnis and Martha Mora, two youth from system of care communities, and Marlene Matarese, Youth Resource Specialist with the TA Partnership. The purpose of this guide is to educate all professionals and adults who work with young people on the importance of engaging and empowering youth. The guide provides information on how to better partner with youth and how to overcome some of the barriers that youth involvement can present. It serves to lay the groundwork for the Youth Movement and to enhance opportunities for youth and utilize their expertise in systems change.
*Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development. (1996). Creating youth/adult partnerships: A training curricula for youth, adults, and youth-adult teams. Tacoma Park, MD: Author.
Lorrin McGinnis is a 19 year-old national youth consultant and youth coordinator for Utah Allies with Families. Marlene Matarese is the Youth Resource Specialist for the Technical Assistance Partnership for Children and Families. Lorrin, Marlene, and Martha Mora co-authored the guide in partnership with youth, families, youth coordinators and professionals across the country.
We invite you to post your thoughts on this topic. Here are some questions to think about:
• Where is your program on the Ladder of Youth Involvement?
• Is this where you want to be or do you need to be on a different rung?
• What kinds of supports do programs need to improve the extent to which they involve youth meaningfully?
• How has your program managed-or failed to manage-some of the challenges associated with moving upwards on the ladder?
As always, we look forward to hearing from you! Your thoughts…
Comments:
 You need to take a long term view about encouraging youth voice, taking steps up the ladder as you go along. You start with consultation and building leadership. Out of those first participants, some will stick with you, and among those, some may develop into real activists. Then those people provider role models for the next group as well as ideas about how you can encourage participation better, and so on. Posted Friday, April 15, 2005 at 12:10 PM
I like the point raised by the last person. I think, though, that there are youth activities of at least two kinds-- some (like a community event) where the youth take initiative in a way that is mostly independent of overall organizational direction, and others, (like having a role in hiring staff who work with youth or doing a survey to develop parts of a strategic plan) that more directly influence what the organization does. Experience with either or both can also enhance youth in their role on boards, etc. Posted Thursday, April 7, 2005 at 12:56 PM
I have similar concerns to the previous post, and I have been looking over the entire report on "youth involvement in systems of care: Making it happen," looking for some ideas. I agree that moving from the consultation level with youth to the "youth-initiated" levels is very difficult. I think part of it too (which is a similar issue with family member participation/emposerment) has to do with levels of knowledge. When people have been working in a system for a long time, they have knowledge about how things work from the more beauracratic and/or technical angle-- families and youth have knowledge about how things work from the experiential angle. Consulting with eachother about priorities and program evolution can work well, but this is still at the level 5. I looked in the publication for examples of activities that are at level 6 and above-- examples included sponsoring a forum or community event, creating a newsletter, developing a survey. Now this is interesting to me: these activities certainly can be youth initiated, and they can provide youth with the information they need to have an independent perspective to insert into decisions about the program (in the example of the survey), but really the program as a whole is going to continue to be led by adults with youth in a sort of enhanced consultation role. So I wonder if the framing of this is not somewhat misleading-- are we talking about finding areas within a program for youth to take initiative, or are we talking about youth truly at level 6 and above within the program as a whole? Posted Monday, March 28, 2005 at 08:57 AM
In our own program, I would say that we have hit something of a glass ceiling at level 5 on the ladder above (level 5 being a maximum we are not always at...) I feel that the challenges involved in moving past level 5 are considerable, and we lack strategies and resources for going further "up." At level 5, we can and do get youth involved in terms of consulting on what we are trying to do and how we are going about it. They provide good insight, but mostly in reaction to the ideas that we are proposing. But the transition to level 6 and higher requires that youth are ready to take a much higher level of initiative. It takes time and support for most youth to reach a level where their confidence is high enough that they feel like they can start advocating for their own ideas and directions for the program. We do try to take a long term perspective and help develop youth leaders, but usually there is quite a bit of turnouver and only a few that are able or interested in sticking with these roles over the long run. Then you may get some real stars who really begin to take initiative-- these youth become involved in more and more leadership because of their ability to work with adults-- but then comes the worry that the same few youth are providing all the "youth voice." Posted Sunday, March 27, 2005 at 01:57 PM
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