At a Glance: Why this Youth-Led Panel Mattered
Children & Young People Now (CYPNow) is a leading platform for professionals working to improve the life chances of children, young people and families. As part of its flagship Future of Youth Work conference, CYPNow invited Participation People to design and deliver the closing session: a youth-led panel that would leave delegates with a powerful, unapologetic reminder of why youth work matters now more than ever.
On 24 June 2025, at the Cavendish Conference Centre in London, we convened a diverse panel of Young Consultants — Fred, Megan, Azisa, Sami and Haydn — facilitated by CEO Antonia Dixey, with Omo Oluwadare capturing photography and social content.
Titled “Designed by Adults, Ignored by Young People – We All Need to Talk”, the session reframed young people not as “service users”, but as strategists, disruptors, content creators, carers, workers and change-makers. It combined lived experience, interactive polling, sharp commentary, and honest challenge — creating a closing session that felt more like a sector intervention than a standard panel.
Who The Session Was For
This session was designed for the people shaping youth work — and for the young people too often excluded from shaping the systems built around them.
It was for youth workers and practitioners, navigating complexity, burnout, and rising need.
It was for managers, commissioners and policy leaders, responsible for decisions about funding, design and accountability.
And it was for the Young Consultants themselves — positioned not as an add-on, but as the core expertise in the room.
The Brief: A Youth-Led Panel Without the “Youth Slot” Energy
CYPNow’s brief was clear: the closing session needed to mean something.
Not a symbolic “youth slot”, not a polite panel to applaud and move on from — but a session that would cut through a full day of content and leave delegates thinking differently about power, responsibility, and the future of youth work.
We were asked to design a closing moment that centred young people’s expertise without tokenism, avoided over-scripting or performative storytelling. And, hold the room with honesty, energy, and purpose.
The aim was not to tell professionals what they were doing wrong, but to invite shared responsibility for what comes next — and to do so in a way that young people genuinely led.
The Insight: A Sector Stuck Between Intent and Impact
Across youth work, a familiar tension persists.
There is a strong intent to centre young people’s voices, but too often, systems, structures and decision-making processes still sit firmly with adults.
Again and again, the same challenges surface:
- Young people invited in too late
- Participation reduced to consultation
- Lived experience treated as insight rather than expertise
- Responsibility for change subtly displaced onto individuals rather than shared across systems
Our Young Consultants echoed these challenges, sharing experiences of tokenistic panels, inaccessible formats, and one-off engagements with no follow-up. They also spoke about the difference it makes when youth voice is done well — when leaders create space, defer power, and trust young people to lead.
To shape the session’s framing, we reflected on these insights alongside our extensive experience across youth justice, health, education, digital safety and commissioning.
What became clear was this: the issue is not a lack of passion or care. It is a gap between values and practice.
And that is exactly what the panel set out to address.
What We Delivered: A Youth-Led Intervention, Not Just a Panel
We designed the closing session as a live intervention — one that modelled meaningful participation in action and treated responsibility for change as shared, not personalised or punitive.
We used live Menti polling throughout to surface assumptions in real time and ground the discussion in shared data, positioning delegates as active participants rather than passive spectators. This reinforced a core message: youth work is something we are all accountable for. Especially not something young people must “fix” by speaking louder.
The format was also deliberately youth-led. Young Consultants shaped the themes, language, and direction of the conversation, and drew directly on their lived experience and sector insight. They led a discussion on themes they identified as most urgent, including:
The persistence of the “snowflake generation” narrative
Mental health framed as an individual issue rather than a structural one
Digital life as a non-optional reality, not a specialist add-on
The legitimacy gap — why neuroscience is often required to validate what young people already know
Polarisation, politics, and the fear of difficult conversations
“What we wish you knew” — delivered as sharp, fast-paced truths that balanced humour with challenge
Rather than assigning blame, the session invited collective reflection and shared responsibility. And by the end, each person left with a clearer sense of both the problem and the role everyone plays in addressing it.
Impact: A “Mic-Drop Moment” with Long-Tail Value
While not a formal research project, the youth-led panel generated strong signs of impact.
- Delegates stayed engaged through to the final minutes — not drifting for travel or emails.
- Senior decision-makers approached panellists afterwards to continue the conversation and explore collaboration.
- Feedback described the panel as a “mic-drop moment” — the part of the day where the why of youth work landed viscerally, not just intellectually.
For the Young Consultants, the session validated their expertise in a high-profile, national forum and built pathways into further leadership opportunities.
For CYPNow, it strengthened their reputation as convenors who don’t just talk about youth work — they champion it.
“The Youth Panel was the high point of the Future of Youth Work conference. The young consultants on the panel were insightful, passionate and articulate in explaining to the audience why young people need to be equal partners – not just consultees – in developing services and support for the future. The audience were left wowed by the confidence and clarity of messaging from the young consultants and left with a clear call to action on how they can support young people to amplify the message.”
Derren Hayes, conference chair and editor of Children & Young People Now.
Key Learnings
This session reinforced five core insights about youth-led participation:
Give young people real ownership of the stage — and design the format to support it
Combine data, story and interaction to create honest reflection
Prepare panellists well, but don’t over-script — authenticity beats polish
Capture the content properly (photos, clips, quotes) to build long-tail value
Plan follow-up routes before the event, so momentum becomes action
What’s Next: From One Panel to a Repeatable Model
The success of this session highlights a significant opportunity to replicate and adapt youth-led panels for other sector spaces. This can include health, social care, education, technology and law — any industry that has a touch point with the youth.
There is also potential to develop a standing youth advisory group. This group would co-design content and formats with CYPNow and partners, supported by diagnostics and training. Together, they would help other organisations move from inspiration to implementation.
From an Afternoon to an Appetite for More
This case study captures one afternoon — but the ambition is bigger.
It shows what becomes possible when:
- Young people are trusted as partners, not participants
- Participation is designed as a practice, not a performance
- And youth voice is treated as expertise that shifts rooms, strategy, and decisions.
At Participation People, we design and deliver youth engagement experiences that are brave, credible and built for impact. Whether you’re looking to commission a youth-led panel, run a diagnostic, or explore a different approach, we can support your organisation in embracing youth-voice with kindness, insight and humility.
