Explaining the Project

• Create youth-friendly materials about community safety and well-being planning – posters, postcards and social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Work with youth to define how they will participate by allowing the youth to help co-create the purpose of their engagement and their role in planning.
• When young people are able to design and manage projects, they feel some sense of ownership in the project. Involvement fosters motivation, which fosters competence, which in turn fosters motivation for future projects.
• Explain upfront what their role will be. Try and negotiate roles honestly while ensuring any promises made are kept.
• Try for a meaningful role, not just token involvement, such as one-off consultation with no follow-up.

Collaboration

• Adults should collaborate with youth and not take over.
• Provide youth with support and training (e.g., work with existing community agencies to host consultation sessions, ask youth allies and leaders from communities to facilitate consultation, recruit youth from communities to act as facilitators and offer support and training, etc.).
• Partner with grassroots organizations, schools and other youth organizations. By reaching out to a variety of organizations, it is possible to gather a wider range of youth perspectives.
• Provide youth with opportunities to learn and develop skills from the participation experience. For example, an opportunity to conduct a focus group provides youth with the opportunity to gain skills in facilitation and interviewing.

Assets

• Look at youth in terms of what they have to offer to the community and their capacities – not just needs and deficits.
• Understand that working with youth who are at different ages and stages will help adults to recognize how different youth have strengths and capacities.
• Ask youth to help map what they see as community assets and community strengths.

Equity and Diversity

• Identify diverse groups of youth that are not normally included (e.g., LGBTQ (Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, two- spirited, transgendered, questioning, queer), racialized youth, Indigenous youth, Francophone youth, youth with disabilities, immigrant youth, etc.).
• Proactively reach out to youth and seek the help of adults that the youth know and already trust.
• When working with diverse communities, find people that can relate to youth and their customs, cultures, traditions, language and practices.
• Understand and be able to explain why you are engaging with particular groups of youth and what you will do with the information that you gather.