The Power of Youth Participation: Lessons Learned and Trends across 10 Years of SSWR

Youth participation has been characterized in the literature as the process through which young people engage in as well as influence the issues and institutions that affect their lives. Social work scholars have made significant contributions to the field of youth participation, and over the last decade, the Society for Social Work Research (SSWR) has seen an increase in the number of accepted abstracts that include youth participation.

As early career scholars a decade ago, we benefited from special interest groups at SSWR by networking and making connections that allowed us to substantially contribute to this area of inquiry. Early on, we saw a rise in doctoral student interest in youth participation; common themes we heard from students included limited support from their institutions because of the uncertainty about this approach and a lack of literature describing the nuts and bolts of how to get started. As such, we began presenting yearly SSWR roundtables and symposia on youth participation. We also published practical manuscripts describing the process of engaging youth as research collaborators and leaders.

Today, the notion of youth participation is far more developed. Through this round table discussion, we seek to critically reflect on trends in youth participation as well as developments as well as threats in the field. For the roundtable, each presenter will share their own perspective on the trends in youth participation as well as the challenges and threats that they observe. Our discussion is informed by both our own practice and a review of abstracts presented at SSWR over the last decade focused on youth participation. Our scan of the abstracts suggests that there has been an increase in abstracts that involve youth participation over the last 10 years and that youth participation is present across multiple clusters from community and neighborhoods and adolescent development to child welfare and research design and measurement. Through this scan, we also observe the various ways social work scholarship has conceptualized and enacted youth participation, such as through youth participatory action research, youth advisory boards, youth sociopolitical development, and youth empowerment, and the implications of youth participation scholarship for the field of social work.

During this roundtable, we will reflect on and discuss topics including 1) variation in the conceptualizations of youth participation, 2) current and future directions in participatory research with youth, 3) institutional infrastructure for youth participation, and 4) doctoral education focused on youth participation and youth participatory research. In addition, we will examine cross-cutting barriers and tensions in the field and considerations for the field moving forward. As a part of the discussion, we will also invite participants to reflect on their engagement with youth participatory scholarship and to engage in generating questions for the future of the field. Through this roundtable, we aim to develop important recommendations and conclusions about the positive value and role of youth participation in research for the field and the importance of understanding social work phenomenon.