Sustained Partnership

It's great to involve young people in one-off consultation projects and to engage their involvement with a short-term project such as a library makeover, but how do we make sure that young people's involvement doesn't stop once the surveys have been collected and the paint on the new 'Teen Zone' has dried?

In this section you will consider how to embed partnerships with young people into your standard library services in both formal and informal ways.

Try this simple Quiz to see where your service is on the scale of sustained partnership with young people at the moment.

A. The Summer Reading Challenge is too much work for library staff to handle. Do you...

  1. Write to your local school to see if they have any young people who might be willing to volunteer their help
  2. Cut down on the amount of time you spend talking to the children about their books Your service can't allow young people to volunteer
  3. Ask your regular group of young volunteers to help out for a few extra hours during the summer

B. A young man who is a regular library user wants to set up a computer gaming club in the library. Do you...

  1. Say 'That sounds like a good idea but I'm not sure when we could do it. Write down your idea on a suggestion slip and I'll take it to the next staff management committee.'
  2. Say 'I don't think we'll be able to do that but I'll ask my manager. I think she has plans to spend our spare budget on a graphic novels collection.'
  3. Say 'That's a great idea! Why don't you ask the other young people at your next meeting and see if there's enough money in the budget to buy some new games.'

C. Your young people's area needs a revamp. Do you...

  1. Put out suggestion slips asking library users what colour they'd like it to be painted and what name the area should have
  2. Talk to your staff team about their ideas. They're really good at design and like to come up with new catchphrases
  3. Ask your young advisers to do an inspection and consultation exercise with library users before contacting your local youth officer to work with excluded pupils on a makeover project 

D. You're about to recruit a new young people's librarian to work at one of your service points. Do you...

  1. Ask young people to show the applicants around the library so that they can give their informal opinions about how suitable they think the applicants are
  2. Not involve young people in the selection process at all. They don't have your experience in judging appropriate candidates
  3. Ask young people to contribute their ideas to the person specification and invite them to be on the interview panel 

E. Your young people's reading group wants to invite Darren Shan to your library. Do you...

  1. Write to Darren himself asking him if he'll be able to come
  2. Say 'Sorry. We've already booked Louise Rennison for this summer.'
  3. Give them some possible dates and tell them you'll check their invitation letter if they'd like your input. 

Note down your answers and look below for your results:

Mostly 1s

You're doing well. You obviously consider the views of young people to be important to your work and you have tried to develop mechanisms for them to be involved. Consider if you can take this further now and try giving your young people more responsibility. Could you train young people to be on interview panels and to undertake consultation projects themselves? Maybe you could think about having a management committee of young people who control their own budget for events too.

Mostly 2s

You're probably very professional and keen to provide a good service for young people but it seems like you don't really involve them in its running. If you want your teenage area to be well-used, why not ask young people what would make it appealing to them. You could ask them how to spend your budget too. If your authority is a timid about handing over power to young people, you might have to be a trailblazer. If you don't try new things, how do you know they won't be successful?

Mostly 3s

Well done! It sounds like you're really doing a lot to involve young people in your services. Your processes for involvement sound well-established too; your young people know how to go making their own plans for library services and are obviously well-supported by staff.

Formal or informal partnerships?

Partnerships with young people can come about in a variety of ways.

Formal

One method is to develop formal partnerships with young people by recruiting them to specific roles. This will involve your authority in significant amounts of strategic planning and may be best done in partnership with other agencies.

Some of the sustainable roles that young people can play are as:

  • Volunteers
  • Reading promoters
  • Inspectors, assessors and advisers
  • Trainers and recruiters

See the case studies in the TRF Resource Library.

Informal

Informal partnerships involve young people in less specific and more flexible roles where young people are consulted on a more ad hoc basis and where there is a free flow of ideas between staff and young people. A library service that works informally in partnership with young people will be one where:

  • Young people know who to contact when they have ideas for developing services
  • Young people are listened to and their ideas are acted on
  • Library staff actively ask for young people's input
  • Young people know that the library is a welcoming and relevant place for them

It may sound easier but in fact this also requires strategic thinking and a service-wide commitment to young people's involvement along with effective marketing, the development of appropriate spaces and services and approachable staff.

For more ideas about how to push the boundaries of young people's involvement even further: