Identifying Practice Components of Youth Councils: Contributions of Theory

Identifying practice components of youth councils:  Contributions of theory

Background and Purpose:  Young people face a variety of challenges in the contemporary U.S. Social workers are involved in numerous efforts to engage youth in programs, communities, and civic life.  One potential mechanism for facilitating youth engagement is a municipal youth council.  Although these councils take various forms, they are primarily a means for allowing some youth to have voice into community decision-making.  Additionally, youth may gain in specific ways by developing skills and a sense of accomplishment.  The evidence base is not well developed, however.  Additionally, multiple theoretical frames are utilized in ways that limit coherence of the field.  Our study reports empirical data on the operation of several youth councils and an in-depth case report of one youth council.  We analyze the data within the context of the literature and compare several theoretical frameworks.

Methods:  The study used multiple methods including:  interviews with 24 adult respondents engaged in youth councils in 24 distinct cities; in-person interviews with 27 youth and 4 adults involved in one large youth council in a major metropolitan area; observations of 8 youth council meetings; and review of documents such as mission statements, agendas, and reports.  Interview notes were transcribed and coded by a team of three researchers.  Data were analyzed using thematic analysis.  This included initial review of transcripts and observational notes, development of primary codes, application of codes to additional data, expansion of codes, and collation of codes into themes.   Triangulation of theory, method, and researcher enhanced validity of study findings.

Findings:  There is substantial variation in the organization, structure, process, and activities of the councils that were examined.  The variability of findings was interpreted according to several frameworks identified in the literature.  These included:  theories of the policy process (e.g., interest group theory), adolescent development (e.g., positive youth development), social justice (e.g., participatory rights), and symbolic tokenism.  Analyzing the data within these frameworks we identified practice components of youth council operations.  For example, practice components related to policy process focus on government procedures, access to the mayor and other leaders, involvement in decision-making, collaboration with other organizations.  Practice components related to social justice focused more on process rather than outcome, are youth-driven, highlight the role of power, and identify strategies of youth empowerment.  Several councils operated with components of multiple frameworks; this had observable strengths (fluidity) and weaknesses (mission drift).

Conclusion and Implications:  The development of youth councils has been characterized as haphazard and their operations were identified to be highly variable.  Using several theoretical frames this research provides conceptual clarity to a field of practice that currently has neither a strong evidence base nor theoretical rigor.  This work is directly helpful to practitioners with interest in supporting youth councils as an intervention for adolescents.  Improved conceptual understanding of the role of the youth council can guide the development of the council in terms of several operational guidelines (e.g., membership, recruitment, activities).  Future research may also be aided by improved conceptual coherence.