What do young people think about what we do | Theory

As well as giving young people regular opportunities to tell you what matters to them and influence decision making, you also need to seek out their feedback about the mechanisms of change you’ve set out in your theory of change. Young people’s feedback about your practice is not evidence of change in outcomes; it is where your theory of change can be tested by understanding young people’s perceptions and experiences of your provision and practice.

Starting point

Start here if you are a youth practitioner new to evaluation and quality improvement design:

Asking good questions about gaining feedback from young people

If you're just starting out, this introduction and workbook developed by the College is a great place to begin. It will help you think through how to gain feedback consistently from young people about what you do and how you do it to find out if their experience of your practice aligns with your theory of change.

Download the workbook

What does meaningful participation and engagement look like?

If you’re looking for some guidance on the principles that drive meaningful engagement of young people, you may find this report by Children in Scotland (2019) useful.

Read the report

Involving Young Londoners: A toolkit for peer research

If you’re interested in enabling young people to design and conduct evaluation and research projects themselves, this is an invaluable practical guide from the Partnership for Young London.

Read the report

Lundy model of participation

This model takes a rights-based approach, recognising that youth voice, or the right to be heard or have a say, is not enough. It breaks down participation into four key components: space, voice, audience, and influence. 

Read here

Advanced

Resources to build on your experience of evaluation frameworks and continuous quality improvement:

Benefits of actively funding a listening project

In this podcast Kelly McFadden, Manager at The Listening Fund Scotland and the College's Dr Jo Hickman-Dunne discuss findings from the Listening Fund Scotland Evaluation.

Listen now

Findings from the Listening Fund

The Listening Fund (2018-2020) supported youth-focused organisations to develop their practice of listening to young people and responding to what they hear. Read the findings of this initiative in Scotland and England, and you can access all interim reports and learn about the evaluation methodology used at the link below.

Go to site

Case Studies from The Listening Fund

If you’re looking for inspiration from other organisations, you’ll find some in this case study report of six organisations that took part in The Listening Fund. Learn about how they integrated gathering systematic feedback from young people about their programs in innovative ways, what the data told them and what changes they made.

Read the report