Youth as right-holders, doers, & knowers

We talk about young people as rights holders, legitimate knowers and doers. Yet how often are youth meaningfully consulted in decisions that affect them?

Youth as a cultural group, not just an age group

Too often youth are flattened into a single category instead of being seen as a cultural group, not just an age group.

We talk about engaging youth because of the developmental benefits, yet program or policy development, evaluation, and research, even in Positive Youth Development spaces, too often reflect deficit thinking and adult control.

Beyond youth-level outcomes

Evaluators too often focus on measuring changes in youth and not the change around youth because of their engagement, such as changes in other stakeholders, programs, schools, community, and policies.

Participation and power-sharing

We celebrate youth participation, yet too often adultism and institutional control still shape who decides, who is heard, and what becomes possible. We also need to be cautious not to push youth into roles and responsibilities they may not want, or into contexts where they will have limited influence.

Special considerations and training

The conversation around special considerations overemphasizes youth. That’s important for their ethical and equitable engagement, but we also need to be transparent about adult-focused considerations, like mindset and readiness to work with youth or share power well.

Understanding Youth-Focused Evaluation

In YFE, we want to move away from evaluations about youth toward evaluations with youth.

What is Youth-Focused Evaluation (YFE)?

Umbrella term

YFE is an umbrella term, not one framework, method, or recipe.

Youth as doers & knowers

Youth are more than subjects or data sources. Their insights, lived experiences, and priorities help shape what matters.

Roles, relationships, shared decision‑making

Rooted in clear youth and adult roles, relationships and shared decision-making, and an acknowledgment of power dynamics.

Context, not one‑size‑fits‑all

YFE is shaped by context (like all evaluations). There is no one-size-fits-all model.

Development & shared learning

YFE is about youth and adult development and shared learning.

Youth roles as practical on‑ramps, not a hierarchy

A practical framework for youth roles from Katie Richards-Schuster and Sara Plachta Elliott.

• Consultant

Offers insight and feedback on an adult-led evaluation. Adults design and implement the evaluation.

• Collaborator

Works with adults on selected parts of the evaluation, such as design, data gathering, or analysis, while adults continue to lead the overall process.

• Partner

Works alongside adults to shape and carry out the evaluation, with intentional efforts toward shared decision-making and more equal power.

• Leader

Directs the evaluation, with adult support as needed. Youth take the lead on direction and decisions.

These roles are not a ladder or hierarchy. They are on-ramps. One is not “better” than another: it’s context-dependent, based on what is ethical, equitable, and honestly doable in a specific context.

Complementary framings exist too, such as Wong, Zimmerman, and Parker’s A Typology of Youth Participation and Empowerment for Child and Adolescent Health Promotion.

Where does YFE come from?

Youth-Focused Evaluation emerged as part of a broader shift away from “business as usual” evaluation, where adults define the questions, methods, interpretation, and use of findings. It moves toward approaches that recognize youth as people with knowledge, perspectives, and expertise adults do not have on their own. YFE, as an umbrella term, defines approaches where young people may contribute, collaborate on, or lead the conceptualization, gathering, interpretation, and use of evaluation findings, depending on the context and the degree of shared decision-making.

+ Action Research

+ Community Development and Civic Participation

+ Participatory, Collaborative, Empowerment, and Utilization-Focused Evaluation

+ Culturally Responsive Evaluation (CRE)

+ Positive Youth Development (PYD)

+ Rights-based frameworks (e.g., UNCRC)

+ Youth Participatory Evaluation (YPE)

Why YFE matters

Youth expertise

Youth bring perspectives and experiences that adults do not have.

Relevance and trust

Youth can improve the relevance and trust of the evaluation process, especially with other youth.

Quality, interpretation, validity, and usefulness

Youth participation/partnership can strengthen all four.

Influence, not presence

Real influence in shaping decisions and co-creation, not just youth presence, which can be tokenizing to harmful.

Leadership, belonging, civic growth

Supports critical thinking and leadership development, belonging, and civic identity.

Stronger programs and communities

YFE can help strengthen programs, organizations, and communities.

Adult learning and growth

Growth opportunities for adult evaluators and other adults.

Exploring some YFE tensions

42%

of the global population is 25 or younger

Source: World Bank, “Chart: How Is the World’s Youth Population Changing?”

How often do we meaningfully engage with youth to gather their input when developing policies and programs?

Definitions vary across contexts: Children (18 and under), Adolescents (10 to 19), Youth (15 to 24), Young People (10 to 24). In some cultures, this may extend into the early 30s.

Ethics & YFE

In YFE, ethics is not just about avoiding harm. It is about creating the conditions for meaningful, purposeful, and equitable youth participation.

ERIC: Ethical Research Involving Children

Guided by the core ethical principles of respect, benefit, and justice. childethics.com

• Rights

Children and youth as rights holders, referring to the 54 articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989).

• Relationships

Ethical issues arise in the space between evaluators, children and youth, youth-serving organizations, parents/caregivers/guardians, leaders, communities, and others. Relationships are core to ethical engagement and should be used to advocate for and uphold children and youth as rights holders.

• Reflexivity

Considering ethical tensions at the planning stage, and engaging critically with ethical decisions as issues arise in practice, well beyond any formal ethical review.

ERIC in practice

Harm and Benefits

Be transparent; consider identifying these in collaboration with youth and those close to them.

Informed Consent

An ongoing process with youth, both formal and informal: operational check-ins and relational touchpoints.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Transparency on the 5 W’s + H of data, secure data management, and regulations (FERPA, COPPA, etc.).

Acknowledgements & Payments

Depends on context, resources, and roles. Not something to gloss over. Consult with youth.

YFE in practice

General framework: 5 stages of evaluation

@ the Corner of Learning & Action, we use this five-step process to support our clients’ and collaborators’ YFE and change-making efforts.

Define and contextualize the YFE purpose, information needs, uses, and roles with youth, users, and other key stakeholders.
Plan the YFE collaboratively, including processes, protocols, and tools, to align with the evaluation’s purpose, information needs, and intended uses.
Gather data and insights by implementing the plan to meet contextualized needs.
Learn by analyzing the data, collaboratively making sense of it, and co-creating recommendations.
Support youth, users, and other key stakeholders in taking action based on what they have learned and communicating what they learned.

The information below highlights key practices. It does not outline all the steps or details that go into practicing YFE.

1 Define & Contextualize

Define and contextualize the YFE purpose, information needs, uses, and roles with youth, users, and other key stakeholders.

+ Contextualize program, organization, community

+ Define roles for youth and adults

+ Youth readiness for role in YFE

+ Evaluator, adults, and organizational readiness for roles in YFE

+ Conditions, resources, logistics, and communication

+ Ethics from the start

This stage is fundamental and should not be rushed! It helps to build trust for power sharing and could reduce the likelihood of downstream issues.

Whose realities and priorities/needs shape this work?Why are youth being engaged and what is their participation meant to strengthen?Are we framing evaluation questions on who/what is expected to change?Are we being transparent about what youth can and cannot influence?Readiness of evaluators, adults, and organizations: Willingness to share power? Training and coaching? Time, resources, and buy-in? Readiness to hear youth perspectives seriously?

• Watch how power and shared decision making operate.

2 Plan Collaboratively

Plan the YFE collaboratively, including processes, protocols, and tools, to align with the evaluation’s purpose, information needs, and intended uses.

+ Build in practice before jumping into design and plans

+ Focus on youth-friendly processes and materials

+ Transparent conversations about data management

+ Build in additional supports for youth and adults

Are we checking for understanding, or assuming it? Are youth still clear on what this work involves?Have conditions changed in ways that require clarification or re-consent?Do youth know they can pause, decline, or stop participating without penalty?Are our materials and activities understandable without being patronizing?What parts of the process might feel confusing, irrelevant, or alienating to youth?Are we making space for youth to tell us when something is not working?Who is shaping decisions right now, and who is mainly reacting?Are youth influencing the process, or mainly validating adult thinking?What do adults need to unlearn or practice differently?

• Culturally responsive = rigorous work.

• Treat consent, feedback, formal and informal communication as ongoing.