Making a difference: Youth participation

Children and young people can choose to participate in a variety of community, research and policy driven projects. Ellie Jones was awarded the Diana Anti-bullying Champion Award in 2010 for her work with Changing Faces - a charity that supports young people living with a facial disfigurement and works to tackle appearance-based discrimination. Ellie has been extensively involved with the Diana Award, a scheme which recognises young people who have made a positive difference to their community (http://diana-award.org.uk). Since receiving the award she has also been involved in the youth reporter’s scheme, a peer mentoring programme and served on the youth board for the Diana Anti-bullying Programme.

Over the past four years, Ellie has become even more passionate about changing our society for the better. At the age of 16, she spoke at a Diana Award event at the House of Lords about the important part that young people have to play in society today. She is passionate about youth voice and participation to ensure that young people have access to opportunities to change their communities.

Ellie explains her story and message further:

"So the Diana Award is an organisation which works to recognise and support young people who are doing really positive things in their communities. So it's really about challenging the perception of young people as being destructive to society and shining a spotlight on those young people who are looking to improve their communities, both locally and across the UK."

"I first got involved with the Diana Award when I was working with an organisation called 'Changing Faces' which is a charity that works with people who have facial disfigurements. And after I had been working Changing Faces for a while on their Young People's Council, we were given, as a group, the Diana Anti bullying Award; and that was really where it all began."

"Changing Faces was helping me learn how to answer difficult questions on a daily basis to now where it's something I'm still passionate about and I can try and help other young people facing those same kind of issues."

Ellie Jones

"In some ways, [the negative stigma around young people] is a self fulfilling prophecy because we feel like we're expected to be doing all these negative things. And so we feel like there is no point trying to help society, or trying to contribute anything positive because no one is ever going to really accept that. And so I think that's the main barrier of young people's attitudes towards their own potential, and so if we feel like we can do positive things, then that's when people really start to get out there and start to get involved. Whereas if you feel hopeless, it seems like there is no point even trying."

"I don't think you can ever say about one particular young person, or a group of young people that they have no potential to help our society, and that they have nothing to offer because that's completely not true. And so, I would say that that's why the Diana Award is so important, and why it's so important that we work across the UK and work with all different kinds of young people from all sorts of demographics, because it is about getting the most out of your time as a young person, and about seeing what all of us can contribute together."

"It's about getting the most out of your time as a young person, and about seeing what all of us can contribute together.""My message to young people who want to get involved in society is that... there's nothing really that is a greater barrier than being worried about what people think about you, or worried that you won't succeed because even the fact that you want to get involved in society is a massive step forward. And it really shows that you can be a responsible member of our society, and that you care, and that you can be compassionate, and that you can really focus on making a difference to the lives of others. I would say don't be afraid; don't worry about that maybe if you don't think that you are going to succeed, because any change at all that you manage to make, no matter how small, can make a massive difference to someone else's life. So have courage."

For more information on the Radio 4 programme, Bringing Up Britain, see the series page and episode guide here. Read Dr Victoria Cooper's article asking 'Do we really listen to children and young people?' from the the Open University’s Children’s Research Centre, supporting participation by children and young people. 

If you'd like to learn more about children and youth studies, explore more about participation on Openlearn, or study free courses with the Open University.