Perspectives: Youth Engagement

We’ve just finished recording our Youth Engagement episode, and it has left me truly hopeful.We spend a lot of time worrying about whether young people are engaged. We spend considerably less time asking whether we are. This podcast is all about how we can co-design along side each other.Our guests were Abbee McLatchie, Deputy CEO of the National Youth Agency in England, and Paul Stepczak, a community engagement specialist who has co-facilitated nearly 100 co-design events across Wales.Abbee told us about a campaign that produced the biggest surge in youth voter registration the UK has ever seen — in one day. About 16-year-olds sitting with the Prime Minister, not for a photo, but for a real conversation. And about young people who shaped a national strategy — her hope being that they’re the ones who drive it forward. Owned, sustained, and decided upon by the very people it was built for.Paul told us about a room in Wrexham where businesspeople, politicians, and 14-year-olds wore the same lanyard. First name. No titles. And what happened when the hierarchy dissolved.There’s also something in this episode that gave us pause — about why so much well-meaning engagement still falls short. Paul has a name for it. You’ll want to hear it.One exchange has stayed with me in particular because it made me refect on our daughter. Our tween talk question: “Is there any point doing anything now, when nobody cares what we think?”Paul: “I care. Get in those spaces.”Abbee: “Start from where you are.”That’s the whole philosophy, really, in two sentences.Listen In.And in a few weeks, the floor will be entirely theirs: an episode devoted entirely to youth voice.Until then, keep listening.Penny & Jenny Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe