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Young people

Getting young people involved in the democratic process

The low rates of voter registration and turnout for young people have been well documented. Significant knowledge gaps about the electoral process and the feeling that politics is not for me all contribute to this.

The following ideas touch on just some of the things you can do to bring politics alive and get young people thinking about how it affects them.

How to:

Run a do politics workshop »
Do political speed dating »
Organise a democracy day »
Do street marketing »

Don't forget to look at our toolbox and case studies for resources and real life examples on working with young people.

How to run a do politics workshop

If you were asked to do a workshop on politics with young people what would you do? Here are some ideas on how to run a two hour political literacy workshop with young people in an informal education setting. This is a tried and tested structure and works particularly well with young people who may have low literacy.

Issues to consider

Your audience: Its difficult to talk about politics in an unstructured environment such as a youth drop in centre. Try to incorporate your workshop into an existing programme of work such as the Prince's Trust Team programme, or an entry2employment group. The ideal group size is 10-15 young people. Any bigger and it starts getting unwieldy.

The venue: Is it a young person friendly space? Are seats set up in a circle to encourage discussion? Are there tables available to work on activities in small groups? Is there enough room to get the group moving about?
Political impartiality: How will you react if participants start asking who you vote for? Ideally you dont want to start interpreting political party policy or start sharing your personal opinions, rather direct young people to where they can find out more about what the parties stand for. See our 20 questions sheet for more advice on tricky questions.
Support: Make sure you have some support during the session. If you are not familiar with the group and you think they may have some behavioural issues its best to make sure that a youth worker is present during the session.
Research: Again if you are not familiar with the group, do some research beforehand and find out what areas they live in, who their local representatives are (you could print our photographs); if there are any issues they are particularly interested in and if anyone has any special needs in terms of accessing information.

Structure: The basic idea of this workshop is to take an issues based approach and talk about all the different ways in which politics affects our everyday lives. We have provided a sample outline which you can adapt to your needs. Many of the activities in this outline come from the Democracy Cookbook.

Timeline: You will need around three hours to prepare for this workshop.

Estimated budget: Just transport and people hours.

Useful tools: Sample workshop outline; Democracy Cookbook; Common questions young people ask

How to do political speed dating

Political speed dating is a fun and light-hearted way for participants to interact with their representatives. Like conventional speed dating each session consists of a series of three minute dates (or interactions). During this time you can ask your partner anything except their age, party affiliation and place of residence. The idea is to focus on what the person is really like. When the gong sounds, regardless of how engrossing the conversation, you move on.

What youll need:

A venue
Refreshments
A gong
Some young people and elected representatives to participate
Score sheet and pens.

You can download a full pack with everything you need for political speed dating from the resources section of the Local Democracy Campaign

Estimated timeline: Bearing in mind people's hectic schedules you'll need at least two weeks to organise this.

Estimated budget: If you don't have to pay for the venue your only costs will be refreshments and possibly transport for young people.

Useful tools: Political speed dating pack

How to organise a Democracy Day

Democracy Days bring young people into contact with elected representatives and aim to bridge knowledge gaps around our democratic institutions and the electoral process.

Democracy Days can be run as a one-day conference comprised of interactive educational workshops followed by a question and answer session. Here is how to best to arrange a Democracy Day based on the Electoral Commission's highly successful events in Wales.

Structure of the day

There are no set times for the day and you could mix-and-match the timings to suit your needs.

Morning session: Three one-hour rolling workshops run by guest facilitators. Examples of facilitators chosen for the morning workshops in Wales include:

The National Assembly for Wales Education Unit
Local authority representatives, including local electoral officers
Local or national newspaper editors and journalists
Lobbyists
Youth organisations

Afternoon session: One hour question and answer style session attended by all delegates. This session involves normally includes locally elected democratic representatives and is chaired by a local or national journalist.

Issues to consider

Inviting speakers: Decide whether or not the elected representatives you invite will be local councillors, Assembly Members, Members of Parliament or even Members of the European Parliament. This may depend on which particular election or event you are looking to promote.

Another issue to bear in mind that if you hold an event with local representatives during the official election campaign period there are special rules associated with this. See our fact sheet on election expenditure for more information.
Choosing delegates: This can be critical it may be helpful to discover which schools or colleges in your area are currently teaching politics or citizenship as part of the curriculum and which times of the year are best for them to attend an event like this.

Perhaps some local youth groups or forums in your area would wish to take part? It is important that you have a definite pool of interest (minimum of around 50 delegates) before confirming venue, facilitators and participants.

Choosing the venue: This is equally important. You will require smaller breakout rooms for the morning sessions and a larger room for the question and answer session. Maybe there are suitable facilities within your own organisation or local authority which could minimise cost?

Certificates: It may also be an idea to present participants with a certificate to show that they have been involved in the day. This can be an added incentive to schools to send students.

Estimated timeline: Minimum of three months preparation dependent on term times, election timing, etc

Estimated budget: Up to £5,000 mainly on venue hire and catering but this can be offset by working through your own organisation or local authority.

How to do street marketing

Street marketing involves a team of staff or volunteers making generally quite brief face-to-face contact with people, for example at an event such as a roadshow or by offering giveaways from a stall in a shopping mall.

It might also involve high profile stunts designed to raise awareness and generate publicity through unusual or arresting displays, costumes or activities in a public place. It can have a deeper impact than advertising or direct marketing and can start to broaden the reach of a campaign cost effectively, if people exposed to the stunt or marketing go on to tell their friends or family.

Street marketing is an easy way to specifically target people less likely to register to vote. Because it requires an immediate response, you can collect forms on the spot making the process of registration seem a lot easier. This also gives the public the opportunity to ask about anything they don't understand.

Watch out for key dates in your area when there may be a large number of under-registered groups. For example, events such as freshers' week or music festivals are a good way of targeting young people. Bear in mind that areas with big crowds are not always the best option, especially if people are in a hurry to get somewhere.

It would also be useful to make partnerships with community organisations who can arrange for volunteers to help get people registered.

Estimated timeline: Street marketing can take place at anytime during the year but check what events are happening in your area.

Estimated budget: If you can get volunteers then your only costs may be buying lunch!

Useful tools: The Commission can provide you with Re?istered themed materials. See toolkit for more details; the Department for Communities and Local Government also have a good practice guide on using outreach and street marketing techniques.