Expected Results

When you work with us you can expect to see young people's confidence increase as they learn how to contribute to decision-making.

More young people will become involved in critically influencing your decisions and in implementing your projects and programmes. As a result, your organisation's services to young people will become increasingly relevant to their needs and you will have proven user involvement strategies to show to donors and other stakeholders. People at all levels within your organisation will agree on what you mean by “participation” and responsibility for making it happen will be more equally shared.

Guiding Beliefs

The following values shape the work of our youth participation programmes:

“Participation is different from consultation.” Asking young people for their opinions on a topic can be done in a participatory way, but we believe that participation goes a bit further. Our definition of participation is people taking action to try and make a positive impact on decisions that affect their lives. So, we believe that youth participation is when young people are the ones deciding what to discuss, discussing the topic, and deciding what they can do to make things happen.

“People participate in different but equally valid ways.” For some young people, knowing that they can give their opinion if they want to can be enough. Others may want to participate in their local youth council or in the UK Youth Parliament. We believe that young people need to decide for themselves how they want to be involved in decision-making.

These guiding beliefs are underpinned by our values.

Our Approach

For us, working together is a mutual learning process. We believe that every youth group is different and so we don't pretend to have all the answers about what will definitely work with your young people. Although our people bring over 30 years of experience and expertise in the youth participation field, we want to learn with you and from you as we work together.

Sometimes consultants rely on one-size-fits-all solutions that are poorly thought through and don't address the group's needs. We spend a lot of time getting to know our clients and their situation so that we can be sure that the help we give you is exactly what your group needs now.

Our Uniqueness

There's a lot of information available these days about youth participation. However, it's not a new concept. ICA has been working for over forty years to ensure that young people across the world are involved in decision-making. We make sure that the organisations we work with support the theory of getting young people involved in decision-making. We have also developed practical and adaptable, easy-to-use tools to help organisations put that theory into action.

Our ToP Methods are based on human behaviour theory so people who experience them find that they are a structured approach to decision-making that “makes sense” and that really allows them to participate and feel that their contribution is valued.

We not only use these methods but we also train people in them, so we really understand how to adapt and use facilitation methods and techniques to help groups make decisions. We put a lot of time and effort into making sure that our work has a lasting positive impact on people and we learn from every encounter and from every group that we work with.