Why establish a Youth Parliament?

The main aim of a Youth Parliament is to provide a platform for young people to learn about and actively participate in a parliamentary process, whilst developing broader professional and social skills that will enable them to contribute to their community.

The overarching goals of a Youth Parliament can be broken down into the following five themes:

1. Strengthening Civic Knowledge:

By familiarising participants with a Parliament’s structure, functions, and procedures, participation in a Youth Parliament serves as a hands-on education for democratic governance. Through their participation, young people gain first-hand experience of parliamentary proceedings, including debates, voting, the formulation of policies, and the principles of democratic decision-making.

2. Embedding Democratic Engagement:

At a time when turnout amongst young people in democratic activity is often low, Youth Parliaments prepare and encourage young people to continue to engage as they move to adulthood. Providing a Youth Parliament programme also sends a message more broadly that engaging young people in our democracies is vital for representation.

3. Providing Members with Youth Insight:

When a Youth Parliament involves Members from the jurisdiction’s legislature, it can provide those Members with valuable insight into the needs, concerns and perspectives of young people in their jurisdiction. Just as the Youth Parliament provides knowledge and skill building for the young participants, they in turn can provide insight to parliamentarians.

4. Developing Leadership and Advocacy Skills:

Youth Parliaments serve as training for aspiring young leaders, equipping them with essential skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, research, negotiation, and teamwork. Within a parliamentary environment, participants learn how to effectively communicate their ideas, engage in constructive debates, and collaborate with their peers to find common ground on issues relevant to their society and communities.

5. Building Social Cohesion and Understanding:

By working together towards common goals, participants of a Youth Parliament can learn to appreciate and respect differences and build productive and positive approaches to debate and discussion, even when views or perspectives differ.

It is important to stress that establishing and delivering a Youth Parliament should not be an ad hoc random undertaking. Rather it should form part of a wider strategy by the Parliament to promote youth and public engagement.

Such a strategy should be high-level, either part of the overall parliamentary strategic plan or a bespoke department level engagement and outreach strategy. Undertaken alone, the Youth Parliament may provide limited value and achievement. Therefore, a strategy should be developed with clear goals, outcomes and outputs which align with youth engagement. Such an approach should be tied to wider parliamentary policies and approaches, such as identifying sufficient resource allocations, risk management, safeguarding, monitoring and evaluation, much of which is covered in more detail throughout this Toolkit.