Increasing youth voice in policy design

In 2018, I led a project with the Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport to co-design a digital tool enabling 13-25 year olds to have a say in the development of national government policies. The Youth and Social Action Team's Strategy had an ambition to more effectively engage young people so they were keen to deliver something meaningful. This was the first time I pitched a project to a client 'cold' and I was terrified I was going to be rejected. What surprised me was how open the team was to developing the project with me and the Policy Lab - further more they responded really well to the idea of co-creating the digital tool with young people themselves through a soon to be formed steering group.

The project resulted in the funding of a pilot of Involved, an instagram account, run by young people through the British Youth Council, that ran polls using Instagram Stories inbuilt functionality. It mean't ZERO digital development cost, saving delivery partners time and money whilst ensuring a pilot was viable within ambitious timescales. The idea was one of three that came from young people and was tested with policy makers, tech experts and users. It was on a platform young people used, and in the development, some of the steering group participants wanted to volunteer to run the page - creating brilliant opportunities for them to build relationships with policy teams wanting to ask young people interesting questions and experience running social media campaigns. 

The impact of the platform is hard to measure as Covid-19 dramatically reduced the ability of young people to make the content they had planned and drew policy makers attention toward crisis response. That said, during its 18 month pilot, Involved ran several campaigns to inform policy making and also amplified public health messaging and had good engagement, getting over a thousand followers in its first month of operation.

The co-design approach truly gave agency to young people, and was respected by two Minsters, who signed off the work. The novel approach was recognised in government with the team winning the Cabinet Offices Innovator Award in 2019 and being featuring in a book showcasing best practice: Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World (2021)