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• Publications and reports
• Participation kit
  • Sharing the stage
  • All aBoard!
  • Count me in!
  • Checking the scoreboard
  • Conferences and events
  • Meeting and deciding
  • Sharing our journey
• Exchange online
• Training, seminars, events
• News
• Speeches
• Links
• Book meeting rooms

Conferences and Events is a toolkit for organisations who want children and young people's participation to move from rhetoric to reality. It offers ideas and information to help you plan, organise and stage meetings, conferences and major events so that children and young people can fully participate in them.

The major principle for effective participation is that in everything you do, pass skills on to children and young people by mentoring them in appropriate roles.

• Benefits of involving children and young people
• Models of participation
• How to get children and young people involved
• Before an event - Roles for children and young people
  • Tips
  • Traps
  • Tools
• At an event - Roles for children and young people
  • Tips
  • Traps
  • Tools
• After an event - Roles for children and young people
  • Tips
  • Traps
  • Tools
• Designing events for children and young people
• Working with people at risk
• Cost to participants
• Facilitation techniques

Benefits of involving children and young people

• Conferences about children's and young people's issues become more relevant because kids are involved.
• Event and conference participants of all ages gain new ideas and perspectives.
• Event and conference organisers of all ages can pass skills on to children and young people.
• Children and young people develop self-esteem, participation and democratic skills.
• The wider community benefits from children and young people as positive role models and from the projects and organisations with which they are involved.

Models of participation

There is no one model for involving children and young people in staging a conference or event. Each one will be different, based on factors such as:

• the aims and budget of the event.
• whether the five key elements of effective participation have been put into practice.
• if children and young people are the sole organisers or co-organisers with adults.
• whether children and young people are the only participants or co-participants with adults.
• who will present at and/or facilitate the event.

How to get children and young people involved

• Contact youth networks, such as local councils, youth centres or sports clubs, or youth organisations such as the Police and Citizens Youth Club, YMCA/YWCA, Scouts, Guides, Duke of Edinburgh Award or St John Ambulance.
• Contact schools, youth centres and youth employers and talk directly to the principal, teacher or employer to discuss the nature of your program and which children and young people might benefit most from participating.
• Contact children and young people directly through advertisements, posters, youth ambassadors and 'word of mouth' from past participants.
• Written invitations to children and young people who you would like to involve, outlining the event, what you hope to achieve and how they can participate.

Before an event - Roles for children and young people

• Event organisers or members of an organising committee
• Advisers and mentors
• Focus group members
• Pre-event meeting attendees
• Ambassadors, promoters and publicists
• Survey creators and completers
• Idea providers

Tips

• Set clear goals and roles - be upfront about what is involved.
• Set a schedule of dates and times to work to and stick to them.
• Arrange informal meetings and provide opportunities to get to know each other.
• Provide practical support, such as travel expenses, office space and equipment.
• Meet after school and provide ample notice of all meetings.
• Research similar events/conferences and build on other. experiences.
• Provide simple early 'wins'.
• Ensure children and young people of different backgrounds are involved.

Traps

• Make sure 20% of participants aren't doing 80% of the work.
• Watch out for 'junior politicians', dominators and those with set agendas.
• Ensure good communication if there is a main committee and a youth committee.
• Avoid tokenism - it is obvious to all involved.

Tools

• Establish mentor relationships and partnerships.
• Develop activities for the design of a program.
• Promote good group processes, eg everyone has a turn speaking .
• Develop and support children and young people's internet. skills
• Survey young people about what they want.
• Build in ways so that people with quieter voices can be heard.
• Use facilitators who have experience working with children and young people.

At an event - Roles for children and young people

• Participants
• Speakers, performers and MCs
• Reporters
• Facilitators
• Assistants
• Peer educators, mentors and support people

Tips

• Ensure a wide variety of children and young people are involved.
• Empower participants, make people welcome, overcome apathy and build trust.
• Ensure access to the meeting space, to information and to technology.
• Prepare well and reach out to all participants .
• Have presenters with different backgrounds and experience.
• Encourage creativity in presentations.
• 'Seed' audiences with questioners if needed.
• Carefully select facilitators - listeners, experienced, sensitive and culturally aware.
• Provide facilitators with training in communication, ice-breakers, games, dealing with difficult people, role-plays, group interaction, questioning skills and listening skills.

Traps

• Avoid expensive costs to attend.
• Be careful of cultural differences.
• Avoid formality - don't get locked into traditional presentations.
• Avoid tokenism - especially when other participants don't understand the role of children and young people.
• Avoid elitist events - cost, venue, location and even the language used may exclude some children and young people who want to participate.
• Don't always choose 'articulate' children and young people.
• Make sure it is the young person's choice to be involved.

Tools

• Give young people opportunities to voice opinions.
• Provide opportunities for skills training, eg public speaking.
• Keep a logbook for participants to record their feelings and share with others.
• Provide resources for different presentation styles - role plays, music, slides, etc.
• Joint presentations, eg children and young people and adults.
• Dialogue, eg interviewing each other.
• Provide background information on written/spoken communication.
• Include relevant information, eg let young people write their own biographies.

After an event - Roles for children & young people

• Debriefed & debriefers
• Evaluators
• Link to other organisations
• On-going project members
• Alumni, ambassadors, members or discussion participants
• Organisers of next event

Tips

• Provide appropriate advisors/mentors - committed, trustworthy, sociable, supportive, non-judgemental people.
• Give children and young people sufficient, relevant training.
• Enthuse children and young people about the benefits of continued involvement.
• Make websites easy to locate, simple and fast to load.
• Encourage school/youth centre involvement.
• Provide support for ongoing workgroups.

Traps

• Potential role confusion - make sure there is a ongoing path for participants.
• Access - not everyone has a computer or knows how to use it.
• Expectations that ideas and strategies will be supported by other children and young people in the community.

Tools

• A written 'de-briefing strategy'
• Training needs analysis
• Designing appropriate support materials
• Publishing people's real life stories on website

Designing events for children and young people

Children and young people say they prefer small group sessions to large group presentations, as it allows them to feel more connected to the discussion and provides more opportunities to make friendships with others. Small group sessions should be experiential, informal and encourage teamwork and respect. They can include:

• Introductory sessions, to allow participants to meet others and exchange ideas
• Skills sessions, such as listening, conflict resolution, project planning, public speaking and communication
• Issues sessions, that help participants identify and discuss issues, develop and plan strategies to solve them, develop recommendations to government and then present their ideas to others
• Resource people sessions, to build links between children and young people and others in their community, eg youth workers, counsellors, police, health care workers
• Presentation sessions, that use innovative approaches such as multimedia, group presentations, question-answer sessions and panel formats to sustain interest
• Social sessions and free time, to allow young people to talk, socialise and absorb ideas.

Working with people at risk

Some participants may be experiencing personal difficulties - such as depression or abuse -or feelings of marginalisation and these issues may come up during discussions. Facilitators need to be trained to know how to address these issues and provide effective support for participants. For big or emotional events, a trained support person should be available for participants at all times.

Cost to participants

Where possible, events should be free or at minimal cost to children and young people.

Facilitation techniques

Conferences and Events (Part 2) has over 80 fun, interesting and effective techniques and games that you can use to work effectively with young people, in areas such as group development, idea generation and discussion, decision making and problem solving, goal setting and action planning, and briefing, debriefing and evaluating.

Follow the links below to download or order a hardcopy.