5. Challenges to Youth Participation

Summary:

  • A resource scarcity exists for youth organizations in the form of time, money, transportation, human resources, and facilities.
  • Reaching the right young people the right way can pose a challenge. In particular, organizations find it challenging to reach less privileged youth of all cultures. There is also a challenge to get the proper balance of engagement (not too much, not too little), address regional challenges, combat negative stereotypes, and address gaps in continuity for older youth.
  • Barriers for organizations include communications, evaluation, changing paradigms about the role of youth, and program inflexibility.

The first step to overcoming the challenges and barriers which exist in Canadian organizations and communities is to identify and try to understand them. Challenges were presented by stakeholders in terms of barriers for youth, barriers for organizations, barriers specific to the arts, heritage, and culture organizations, and barriers that apply to all levels.

5.1 Resource Scarcity

No organizations or young people who participated in this conversation complained of being over-resourced. The funding climate is very competitive, and organizations are getting by “on a shoestring” in most cases. It is their perception that youth programs and activities are often under-valued by society and therefore by funders.

Some of the specific resource issues identified include the following:

  • Time is a barrier, as many youth do not have the time to be involved in activities in their communities. Many youth work, have additional school activities, or are already involved in sports and recreation.
  • Money is also a barrier, as not all youth can afford program fees. Even free programs are impacted by this because so many young people have part-time jobs.
  • Transportation is a barrier, especially for rural communities. Programs need to go to youth, or provide transportation to connect them to their programming.
  • Human Resources were a resource that organizations mentioned struggling with. Organizations reported finding it difficult to maintain adequate human resources for a few reasons: low pay, difficult hours, lack of job stability (due to project-based funding), and a sense that youth work is the bottom rung of a career ladder. Also, many organizations rely on volunteers because of resource scarcity. As one participant phrased it, “The only way you stay around for a long time in this sector–as an individual–is not to look at it like a job, but as a mission.” According to some stakeholders from arts, heritage, and culture organizations, human resources are particularly challenging; no one really trains for community youth engagement leadership in these sectors. There are reportedly limited professional development opportunities and credentials. For this reason, participants observe a broad range of skills and successes in the field.
  • Finding good facilities can be a challenge, as there is also a reported shortage of good physical programming space in some communities (e.g., youth organizations get leftover unwanted space or no space at all). It is frequently the case that young people want to be engaged, but organizations don’t have the resources or capacity to engage them.

5.2 Reaching the Right Young People the Right Way

Over-Representation of Privileged Youth

Several organizations that host school visits to arts, heritage, or cultural institutions suggested that if a map is created of school attendance, the same schools will often be found to visit the same institutions over and over, and these are observed to be mostly the well-resourced schools. So although it may appear that there are many school visits per year, participants pointed out that the number of students reached is much lower than the number of student visits over the course of the year. Also, youth with abundant parental and community support are more likely to engage in these sectors outside of school (e.g., dance classes, family trips to the museum).

Engaging All Cultures

Making engagement accessible, appropriate, and safe for all cultures is a significant challenge. Many organizations commented on the difficulties they encountered engaging Aboriginal youth, some new Canadian communities (although not all), and French-language groups outside of Quebec. This is a complex issue beyond the scope of this report, but issues of inclusion, colonial heritage, and racism contribute to this barrier. Many organizations who noted this as a barrier also expressed a desire to do what they can to overcome it.

Proper Balance of Engagement

Many youth and organizations alike identified challenges associated with breaking through to all youth, not just “keeners” or those who stand out and are already highly engaged. On the other hand, several youth-led organizations identified challenges around over-engagement, and as a result, youth burnout among some of their most engaged clients, members, or employees. Too much engagement can be just as much a challenge as too little.

Regional Challenges

Rural and urban communities face unique challenges regarding youth engagement, and their efforts to engage youth need to look significantly different, both in terms of distribution of resources as well as program design, based on these challenges.

Negative Stereotypes

Some communities react negatively to their youth based on poor communication, poor understanding of youth culture, or perceived fear of youth. An example given by participants was the practice of playing classical music in public spaces to “drive youth away.” This negative stereotyping of youth can disengage them. Even if an organization is interested in engaging young people, participants felt that organizations need to combat assumptions that young people may have about how approachable the organization is. Youth who already face multiple barriers are particularly vulnerable to the effects of negative stereotyping.

There are also negative stereotypes in youth culture about over-engagement and many organizations fear that youth feel being involved or engaged is somehow “uncool.” This is not universal, however, as many youth-led organizations can also attest to the value of being engaged in youth culture.

Gaps in the Continuity of Engagement for Older Youth

Retention is challenging, especially in regards to maintaining a life-long continuum of engagement as youth grow up or change. This is especially highlighted by Aboriginal groups, as they are such a young population, and have a focus on intergenerational partnerships rather than youth-focused ones separate from adults.

The arts and culture sectors reported challenges around continuity. Programs exist for youth, and grants exist for established artists and performers, but participants reported little in the way of support for emerging professionals. This was pointed out primarily by the performing and visual arts organizational representatives.

5.3 Barriers for Organizations

Communications

Making contact with young people can be difficult (especially with disengaged youth, who may have left school or be out of the mainstream). Staying in touch with youth once contact is made can be challenging, especially for organizations that are already under-resourced, but in many cases it is deemed to be important to maintain contact in order to provide continuity of engagement in the organization and the community. Retention of youth participants in programs or projects is often a big challenge because young people move and/or grow up. To maintain those relationships takes a significant investment of time and employees.

Evaluation

Evaluation can be a challenge because so many of the outcomes of youth engagement are qualitative (do not easily fit within reporting frameworks) or long-term (and therefore are not within the reporting timeline). This is only the case when expectations of the recipient of the evaluations are quantitative and short-term. There are other evaluation models that can be more compatible with youth-engagement activities.

Changing Paradigms

Arts, heritage, and culture organizations theorized that traditionally there has been a role for young people as “audience” but this is only one level of engagement. They felt that the shifting of roles for youth from audience to participant needs to be intentional. Adults who were speaking on behalf of these organizations felt they needed to help “break the ceiling” for youth becoming involved in organizations, so they could be seen as producers rather than solely receivers of arts, heritage, and culture. In some institutions and fields, this is seen to be a significant paradigm shift.

Inflexibility

Some participants commented that engaging youth with the end goal already figured out takes away their power and makes their contributions token at best, and disengaging at worst. It was also noted by many participants that the constraints of current funding and proposal parameters are very focused on the identification of measureable results, often before the project begins, which does not allow for flexibility of experimentation and learning which is where many youth engagement breakthroughs occur. For whatever reason (funding expectations, policies, and procedures), inflexibility is a significant barrier to engagement at all levels.

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