From Doing For to Doing With: Youth Voice, Agency, and Meaningful Participation

One of the most common frustrations in youth support is the feeling that carefully designed plans still do not lead to real engagement. A meeting goes well on paper. Goals are set. Support is offered. Adults leave feeling reasonably hopeful. Then the young person stops replying, attends inconsistently, or goes along with the process without ever really investing in it. In many cases, the issue is not that support is absent. It is that the young person has had very little real influence over what that support looks like.

This is where the language of youth voice and agency can become either useful or superficial. Most practitioners agree that young people should be listened to. The harder question is whether they are meaningfully involved in shaping decisions that affect them. There is an important difference between being consulted and being included. Consultation asks for input. Genuine participation allows that input to change something.

For vulnerable youth, this difference matters a great deal. Many have spent years in systems where adults assess them, refer them, plan for them, and make decisions in their name. Even when those adults are well intentioned, the pattern can become deeply disempowering. A young person may learn that speaking honestly makes little difference, or that the safest option is to agree outwardly while disengaging inwardly. From that perspective, so-called non-engagement can sometimes be read less as apathy and more as a rational response to having little ownership.

A relational approach takes this seriously. It recognises that support tends to work better when young people experience themselves as participants rather than recipients. This does not mean adults step back from responsibility or abandon professional judgment. It means they share power where they genuinely can. It means they become more transparent about decisions, more open to feedback, and more willing to adapt when a young person says, in effect, “This does not fit me.”

In practice, this often begins with ordinary questions asked in a different spirit. Instead of assuming the goals are obvious, adults can ask what the young person actually wants to be different. Instead of presenting a fixed plan, they can offer options and explain the reasoning behind them. Instead of treating resistance as a barrier to get around, they can treat it as information about fit, timing, or trust. These are not dramatic changes, but they can significantly alter the tone of the work.

Meaningful participation also requires adults to think carefully about how easy it is to disagree. Many settings appear collaborative on the surface, but still communicate that adult views carry more weight. Young people quickly notice whether feedback is genuinely welcomed or simply tolerated. They notice whether meetings are full of jargon, whether plans are written in language they would never use, and whether any visible change follows their input. If participation is going to feel real, it has to be understandable, practical, and consequential.

This is particularly important for young people who have learned to stay compliant in order to stay safe. A superficially cooperative young person is not always an engaged one. Sometimes the young person who agrees with everything is the one least able to say what they really think. Relational practice asks adults to look beyond politeness and consider whether the young person has enough safety and permission to express difference, frustration, or disinterest without fearing the relationship will sour.

There is also a common professional fear that too much choice will create chaos or weaken structure. In reality, agency and structure are not opposites. Thoughtful participation works best within clear boundaries. Adults still hold responsibility for safety, ethics, and overall direction, but they can invite young people into the process in meaningful ways. This might include choosing priorities, shaping the format of sessions, deciding how progress is reviewed, or helping define what support feels useful rather than simply acceptable.

When this happens consistently, young people are more likely to experience support as something they are part of, not something being done to them. That shift matters because belonging and influence are closely connected. A young person is far more likely to invest in a process when they can see themselves in it. Even small choices can communicate respect. Over time, that respect can strengthen motivation, honesty, and trust.

For practitioners, the challenge is less about using the right participation language and more about being willing to share some control. Meaningful youth voice is not a decorative extra to place around an existing plan. It is a discipline of listening in ways that carry consequence. It asks adults to tolerate being revised, to remain open when a young person names something that is not working, and to treat participation not as a reward for engagement, but as one of the conditions that makes engagement more possible.

References

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Lau, M., et al. (2020). From consultation to shared decision-making: Youth engagement strategies for promoting school and community wellbeing. American Journal of Community Psychology. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7702112/

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Simmons, R., et al. (2026). Youth advisory boards: A scoping review of characteristics, youth engagement activities and role in inclusive research. Journal of Youth Studies. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2025.2610155