Youth engagement within integrated youth services: A needs assessment
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: "Aim: Youth engagement (YE) is a practice that enhances youth leadership skills and wellbeing while also supporting youth civic contribution. Engagement of youth perspectives is critical to the development of programs and policy directions that affect them and YE practice has been widely adopted within integrated youth services (IYS). Frayme is an international network that brings people together from across disciplines to increase the uptake of IYS. Some of Frayme’s main objectives are to synthesize knowledge regarding best practices of YE within IYS and to stimulate changes in practice toward better standards of YE. The purpose of this paper is to: 1) describe YE practice and how it relates to IYS and system transformation in youth services and 2) to present findings from a needs assessment examining how youth and adult allies define effective YE within IYS. Methods: Frayme facilitated a ProAction Café to collect youth and adult ally feedback with regard to how they define YE within IYS. Specifically, the participants were asked to respond to questions examining their experience of effective YE processes and how they apply to IYS. Results: Through a thematic analysis, three over-arching themes were identified: positive relationships, dynamic opportunities for capacity-building and meaningful engagement. Conclusions: Results are discussed in relation to current research in YE and recommendations are made to enhance YE practice within youth services. Findings will be used to inform Frayme’s strategy to enhance YE practice within IYS. The findings also contribute to the literature within YE, IYS and system transformation."@eng
Source: eScholarship@McGill (McGill)
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3011443696