Promoting young people’s participation

Participation is the active involvement of young people in the decision-making process. Schools and colleges are developing students’ skills of active participation. A learning culture that values young people’s views will be one that is enriched by creative ideas and solutions. Adults will be better able to understand young people’s needs if time is made to listen to them and opportunities created for their insights to inform practice. ‘Making a positive contribution’ is also a key outcome of Every Child Matters: Change for Children, the programme of change to improve outcomes for all children and young people up to the age of 19.

Given the necessary support, refugees can become full and active members of their local community. Not only does this help support their integration, it also helps build cohesive communities. Schools and colleges are well placed to help refugees increase their understanding of the society in which they live and to deploy their talents and skills effectively so they can participate fully in the life of the school and the wider community.

Community Cohesion Education Standards for Schools is Home Office guidance on how to promote community cohesion within schools through tackling discrimination and promoting good race relations whilst also focusing on raising levels of educational attainment.

Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society: The Government’s strategy to increase race equality and community cohesion (2005), aims to maximise the potential benefits of diversity to our society and economy and to address the challenges diversity can bring through:

• Promoting inclusive notions of citizenship and belonging
• Eradicating racism and extremism
• Tackling inequality and opening opportunities for all
• Building cohesive communities.

Through participation, the attainment of refugee students can be improved and positive inter-community relationships can be fostered.

Good practice

By promoting young people’s participation and the active involvement of refugee students, schools and colleges will benefit from their skills and talents.

Include all young people

Ensure that students from all backgrounds have opportunities to be consulted. Refugee students should have equality of opportunity to be involved. Schools and colleges should monitor involvement in participation activities to ensure that refugee students are appropriately represented.

Make practitioners aware of the benefits of involving young refugees

It is important that staff see refugee students as creative and resourceful. All staff should avoid regarding refugee students as passive and as being purely recipients of support because of their challenging experiences. Refugee students should be made aware that their opinions and contributions are valued.

Brighter Futures is a network of self-advocacy groups working to give young refugees a voice. It is run by Save the Children England Programme. Young people in the Brighter Futures groups have designed a website for other young refugees.

Involve young people in planning and decision-making

Ensure that refugee students know about and understand decision-making processes. Learning about having a voice, democracy, rights and responsibilities, prepares all students for life in a diverse society. The Citizenship Foundation’s Young Citizen’s Passport explains ‘those parts of the law that have most relevance to the everyday life of young people in England and Wales’. A teachers' resource is also available that includes lesson plans that support the use of the Young Citizen’s Passport for teaching Citizenship at key stage 4 and post-16. The celebrating diversity area of this website gives information about this.

National Youth Agency provides information about their programmes and campaigns to promote young people’s participation in democracy and decision-making.

Children’s Rights Alliance for England is another valuable online resource.

Make sure that teaching materials connect directly with some refugee students’ experiences. When teaching about decision-making processes in the UK, compare these with other countries. Websites such as the Home Office’s Country Reports and BBC News’ Country Profiles can be useful resources.

Human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch can also provide information about the restriction or curtailment of rights in certain countries.

Promote volunteering

Volunteering is an enjoyable way for refugees to improve their English, meet new people, gain work experience and contribute to school and college life. Schools and colleges can link up with community organisations, including refugee organisations, to develop volunteering projects. The Community Service Volunteers’ Community Partners website is designed to help universities, colleges and schools develop opportunities for citizenship education through community involvement. It provides access to organisations interested in community partnership work, with case studies of some successful projects.

Volunteering England’s A – Z of Volunteering and Asylum is a handbook that provides helpful information and guidance for those who may want to encourage refugees to volunteer. Some schools have benefited from older refugee students supporting learning in the primary or secondary classroom under the supervision of the teacher, for example by deploying their bilingual skills to support reading activity.

Active global citizenship in the curriculum

There are teaching resources available that encourage young people’s participation this way. Developing active global citizenship in the curriculum can teach students their rights and lead to responsible action . It can also engage refugee students’ prior knowledge so they can contribute to the learning of their peers. The promoting young people's participation area of this website provides information about teaching materials for key stage 4 students that can be adapted to post-16 study.

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development ( CAFOD) produces resources for teachers looking for current ideas and themes to integrate the global dimension into their curriculum, including post-16.

Development Education Centres ( DECs) are independent local centres that support teachers and students in learning about global and sustainable development issues and how to 'think globally and act locally'.

Websites that provide useful materials and reference information include:

Oxfam Cool Planet

International Save the Children Alliance

UNICEF Resources for students and teachers

Consider innovative and creative approaches

Participation-Spice it up!: Practical Tools for engaging children and young people in planning and consultations a Save the Children publication that has lots of practical tools and ideas.

Connexions has published guidance documents on ways to involve young people. These can be downloaded from the publications area of the Connexions website. Useful guidance includes:

Involving Hard to Reach Young People in the Connexions Service - Guidance for Connexions Partnerships and Other Partners

Involving Hard to Reach Young People in the Connexions Service - Why involve the hard to reach?

The Active Involvement of Young People in the Connexions Service: A Practitioners Guide

Encourage involvement in student councils

Refugee students may be unused to the idea of student councils and need extra encouragement to participate. National organisations also promote representation and involvement. For example the British Youth Council aims to advance young people’s participation in society and civic life and to put them in touch with each other, with campaigns and with opportunities for volunteering and winning recognition of their achievements. Schools and colleges have also encouraged refugee students to become involved with the U K Youth Parliament (UKYP). Some local UKYPs have been involved in raising awareness about refugees and campaigning on their behalf.

Rewarding refugee students’ involvement

Taking part, for example, in a consultation activity or helping to plan a project that contributes to citizenship education can be rewarded. This can also be recorded in a student’s Record of Achievement or Progress File Achievement Planner. Nominating refugee students for public awards can give their work further recognition and raise the profile of their contribution amongst the local community. Young refugees have, for example, had their contributions to the community recognised by the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Award for Young People, which ‘ celebrates inspirational qualities of young people aged 12 to 18 by recognising the contribution that they make to their schools, families, friends or communities’ .

Assess and monitor what has been achieved

Make sure that what has been achieved is monitored and evaluated so that young people’s participation in the shaping and delivery of services is established and further developed. Hear by Right is a standards framework for organisations across the statutory and voluntary sectors to assess and improve practice and policy on the active involvement of young people.

Case studies

The Young Refugee/Asylum Seeker Endeavour Award (.PDF)

Young refugees in the London Borough of Hillingdon received special awards to recognise their achievement, motivation and determination to overcome hardship. The case study describes how the LEA and social services worked in partnership with a charity to recognise the positive contribution that refugee children and young people made to their schools.

Journey to Safety: a peer-led project (.PDF)

‘Journey to Safety’, a project developed by the British Red Cross Youth and Schools Service and Student Action for Refugees (STAR), trains sixth formers to raise awareness in four Birmingham schools by reaching young people through the key stage 3 curriculum. This case study shows how the young peer educators contribute and also, along with participating pupils, learn important skills. The project has produced a training pack that includes guidance on how to run the programme as a peer education activity.

Tracing and Message Project (.PDF)

The International Tracing and Message Service (ITMS) is a Red Cross service that works to reconnect families that have been separated by war or natural disaster. At George Dixon International School in Birmingham it supports young refugees who may have lost their loved ones through war. This case study describes how students in year12 are trained through the school’s International Baccalaureate Diploma course to promote the tracing service and act as a referral point for their peers.