Case Study 1: Helping gay and lesbian young people shape the Peer Support Project

Peer Support Project was a small voluntary organisation based in Manchester that offered support to LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) young people.

Many of the young people they worked with were experiencing severe bullying, some had mental health and learning difficulties, and others were self-injuring. Encouraging these young people to take on a public role in promoting the organisation was extremely challenging.

Peer Support Project started where young people were at, valuing whatever contribution they could make, from creating a magazine to supporting other LGBTQs. Building on this work, they also wanted to formally involve young people in their Project Coordination Team, to start to plan sessions and to play more of a role in the organisation's direction.

Over a period of two months, ICA:UK worked with a small group of young people and staff to look at different elements of participation, considering:

• What does being involved in the LGBTQ community mean to me as a person?

• What does “participation” actually mean?

• What rights do I have as a young person?

• What power do I have to make things happen?

• How do adults influence me?

The series of sessions ended with young people planning and implementing their own media project, designed to highlight issues facing LGBTQ young people.

During the final evaluation session, one young woman said that from participating in these sessions, she had learnt “how to get on with people a lot more, to be more outgoing and to know that people like you.”

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Case Study 2: Developing a Youth Participation Strategy for BARCA-Leeds

Bramley and Rodley Community Action, or BARCA www.barca-leeds.org , delivers a range of health, education and personal development services to young people and adults in West Leeds.

In November 2004 their Youth Work Manager asked ICA:UK for some help in developing a youth participation strategy for the organisation. Although they had some young people involved in running individual clubs and programmes, they felt that not all of their staff were on the same page as to what youth participation actually meant and entailed.

After several meetings and phonecalls, ICA:UK facilitated an AwayDay for BARCA in February 2005, designed to get their young people, staff and volunteers talking about youth participation and what it meant. During the day, BARCA's people:

• Discussed the benefits and dangers of their young people participating in the organisation

• Looked at the needs that young people had in order for them to participate, and the resources the organisation had to encourage that involvement

• Learnt about Roger Hart's Ladder of Young People's Participation see - www.freechild.org/ladder.htm - and ranked their own activities against that ladder

• Created their own vision for young people's participation within the organisation

• Identified some next steps that each participant would take to make that vision happen

At the end of the day, BARCA's Director told the group, “Everything we're doing should include youth participation.”

BARCA has recently conducted an evaluation with the young people who attended the Away Day, to see what has changed within the organisation from their perspective.

Amongst other activities, young people have now had the opportunity to: plan an event to recruit new members to one of their groups; interview new staff; train adults on how young people want to be trained; and evaluate their After School Club.

Overall, the young people said that they were happy that workers listen and respond to their ideas and suggestions, and with their own current level of involvement.

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