How do we bring the youth voice into our local governments?
Charlie Zeitlin
This month, the Palo Alto Youth Council (PAYC) presented the Palo Alto City Council with a report on the youth community's highest civic priorities.
PAYC set out to do this by identifying what the Palo Alto youth experience is like and what we want our leaders to focus on–by distributing our first-ever Youth Issue Census. After an intense marketing campaign, PAYC surveyed over 260 high school students to gauge awareness of local government, civic priorities, and to find out the biggest student concerns.
Before the Palo Alto Youth Council set out to do this, we laid out our key questions:
Do students know what the City Council does?
Do we feel our voice matters?
What policies do we want to be prioritized?
By collecting data directly from Palo Alto youth, we hoped to identify gaps in civic awareness and provide clear, actionable insights for our City Council.
Some of the most insightful data we ascertained include:
68% of youth know little to nothing about the City Council’s role
52% don’t believe their voice can make a difference in local government
73% want the City Council to focus resources on combating climate change
We asked for specific opinions on climate change, student safety, and other areas they would like to see the city address.
Once we had written the report, we went to the City Council to present our data. They heard that most youth aren’t civically engaged and don’t think their voice can make an impact. They heard calls for progress, including safer neighborhood bike routes.
The City Council’s response was galvanizing. Immediately, Councilmembers were curious about the results and spoke among themselves about what they could do to focus on these concerns.
This data will help shape the initiatives of PAYC for next year; we are excited to move forward in collaboration with Mayor Lauing and the City Council.
How Others Can Replicate It
This idea is a model that any Youth Council or city can use to lift up student voices so that they are heard by city government. Here’s how:
Identify The Key Questions
Figure out what you want your city government to know. For PAYC, it was youth legislative priorities and their level of civic engagement.
Make the Data Actionable: Present findings clearly and suggest concrete steps for city leaders.
Create a report that communicates the main themes from survey data and present it to your city government, ideally in a public meeting. In our case, PAYC presented at a City Council and answered any questions Council members had about the Census.
The Path Forward
Data such as this can help shape city government agendas in partnership with youth commissions. It can encourage bolder civic education efforts and meaningful change for cities at large.
With continued engagement from youth and their opinions at the forefront, we can ensure that the next generation shapes the cities in which we grow up!
Image credit: iStock