Implementation guidance: Implementation in a school

There are four key elements of implementing the Youth Voice Toolkit within a school setting: 

1. Agree leadership support 

2. Create a youth voice charter 

4. Take action 

Following the completion of these steps practitioners will have a youth voice action plan based on theme(s) that affect the lives of children and young people. This will support the direction of travel on next steps to respond to the views that have been gathered.  

To fully embed this approach, it is important to agree support from leadership across the school. To do this, the toolkit approach must be explained in full. Use the summary presentation within the support materials section to help facilitate this.

Practitioners should gather support for: 

  • The creation and implementation of a school Youth Voice Charter. This will outline guiding principles for any adult who wishes to consult with children and young people. (please note - If a community or local authority youth voice charter already exists, this can be used). 

Firstly, it is important to find out if there is an existing youth voice charter within the local authority or community. If this exists it should be utilised to support implementation of the toolkit, if not, the creation of a charter should be facilitated.  

A Youth Voice Charter is helpful to support a consistent, agreed and widely understood approach to consultation with children and young people.  The charter outlines the principles that all adults should follow when they are consulting them. 

The charter gives a mechanism to fully appreciate the way in which children and young people wish to be consulted, while ensuring that it is meaningful, non-tokenistic and supports accountability. 

The charter should consist of a number of statements and descriptive sentences that allow adults to understand the principles of how they should work with children and young people.  Forth Valley and West Lothian have an example of a youth voice charter.

Step 1 - consult

Create a consultation survey using the questions below as guidance. The survey should contain at least three questions similar to those below. If you already work with a youth voice structure such as a pupil council, committee or leadership group, you may be able to work with them to develop the survey questions. The consultation survey should be created in an accessible format.  

Youth Voice Charter Consultation - Purpose 

This survey is an important part of creating a youth voice charter, as it offers children and young people an opportunity to tell adults how they wish to be consulted. The responses then form the basis of the youth voice charter. The charter is the foundation of the Toolkit approach and forms a commitment that adults will consult with children and young people in a rights-based way.  

Youth Voice Charter Consultation Survey - Example questions  

  • How would you like adults to speak to you, when they want to hear your thoughts and ideas? 

  • What could adults do to help you feel listened to and taken seriously, when they want to hear your thoughts and ideas? 

  • What should adults do to treat you fairly and with respect, when asking your opinion? 

  • What could adults do to make it easier for you to understand what they are asking you? 

  • After you tell adults your ideas as part of consultation activities, what would you like them to do next? 

Once the consultation survey is created it can be circulated across the school, e.g. sharing in classes, youth groups and assemblies. Give children and young people the opportunity to complete the survey, and agree a time frame for completion.  

Step 2 - Consolidate

Gather the results of the consultation survey. Depending on the quantity of responses, it may be helpful to distil some of the answers or present them in a table or spreadsheet, you may wish to utilise digital tools to support this. Ensure the consolidated responses are in a format that can be understood by children and young people. 

Step 3 - Analyse

Present the consolidated responses from the survey to any existing youth voice group, or structure within the school (pupil council, ambassador groups etc.) Allow time for the young people to analyse the views presented and give them the opportunity to identify the common themes, statements, phrases, words and ideas. Ask the group to share and discuss these common elements and select or present them as statements. To help aid this process and support discussion with young people you may wish to refer to the Forth Valley and West Lothian example or the Childrens Commissioner 7 Golden Rules for Participation 

Step 4 - Create

Support the young people to take the common statements and compile these into a youth voice charter document. Ensure the document has headings and descriptive text for what these headings mean. Share these with the youth voice structure (and other youth voice groups if possible) to confirm accuracy and agree the overall look of the youth voice charter. 

Step 5 - Share

Now share this charter across the school and ensure it is displayed and upheld by all practitioners and leaders within the establishment. You may want to create an area where the charter can be signed by leadership, or larger visual formats of the charter can be placed on walls. 

Practitioner(s) leading youth voice within the school should now use the Empowering Youth Voices Resource Pack. This resource is based on the principles of peer research, and offers a practical way to upskill children and young people to consult their peers on themes that are important to them.  

This pack can be used at any time and over any period, with recommendations on how to use it detailed in the Empowering Youth Voice resource section. 

The second section of the pack can also be repeated at any point to support youth voice structures to consult on different themes and generate new youth voice action plans. 

Note: if your school does not have a youth voice structure you may prefer to use the Empowering Youth Voice resource pack with a dedicated class instead. 

The toolkit has now been implemented in the setting. Use the youth voice action plan that has been created to steer the next steps of how youth voice informs change and improvement. This should allow you to: 

  • Support the direction of the youth voice structure for the near future 

  • Agree measurable ways to demonstrate that the actions within the plan are being achieved 

  • Provide key information to leaders on how a wider representation of children and young people respond to questions surrounding a particular theme 

  • Agree future themes that may be consulted on using the social researcher method 

Providing a feedback loop to those that are not involved in a youth voice structure is also essential. Information on how to do this can be found in the measuring impact and sharing action section. 
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