How do we do Meaningful Youth Participation?
| Meaningful youth participation is not easy; it requires a commitment to build a culture for it to take place, to create multiple opportunities for it to happen, and to follow guiding principles to ensure a space where girls and young women can use their power. |
The ‘Trefoil of Youth Participation’
Meaningful youth participation can happen when there is…
- A culture that supports youth participation;
- Opportunities for young people to participate;
- Principles in place to ensure the opportunities offered are meaningful.
The Trefoil of Participation links these three key parts together visually through a symbol that is unifying for the Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting Movement, just as we are unified in our Compass 2032 vision.
 | The circle that encompasses the trefoil is our culture. Reminding us that all opportunities we create for meaningful youth participation must take place within a supportive, enabling and inclusive environment. |
 | The three leaves of the trefoil represent the different types of opportunities for youth participation that we can create. No one leaf is more important than the other in the trefoil because creating different spaces for young people to participate allows them to lead in a way that is relevant, exciting and accessible to them. |
 | The stem holding together the opportunities and connecting the culture to the trefoil represents the principles. The more consistently we implement the principles in the opportunities we create, the stronger our overall culture will become and the stronger our culture is, the more these principles will become part of our normal practice. Ensuring meaningful youth participation all round. |
| The ‘Trefoil of Youth Participation’ is a visual framework for how we can achieve meaningful youth participation in the Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting Movement. There are a variety of child and youth participation models in the sector. Our model draws on some of these models: Hart's (1992) Ladder of Youth Participation, the Lundy Model (2013) and especially the Flower of Participation by CHOICE (2017), as well as insights and existing practice from across the Movement. |
This model has been developed as guidance for the Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting Movement for how we can continue to foster and facilitate meaningful youth participation. What this looks like in reality will be different for every Member Organisation and context. For some people the ideas behind this model may be completely new, for others these concepts may be more familiar or almost second nature. You can identify what you need to take from this, and how you can adapt and apply it to help grow and enhance your current practice.
Remember - the best people to determine what meaningful youth participation is and feels like will always be the girls and young women you are working with.
