Drawer - ChangeTracker

Change Tracker

This self-assessment tool aims at identifying successful engagement with decision making within youth political participation activities. It is designed to quickly assess how effective youth political participation activities are at influencing municipal decision making and what changes they create. The tool will help you assess:

• How effectively has your project engaged with decision makers?
• What impact has your project had on decision making? (i.e., what changes to policy have happened)
• How has your project increased young people’s involvement in local democracy?

What to expect from this tool?

Using this tool will help you develop the Democracy Reloading Key Competency of “Creating a supportive environment within the municipality to involve young people in decision making”.

In particular:

• Understanding - I understand the political environment of the municipality in relation to youth policy.
• Skills - I mobilise and cooperate with other relevant stakeholders at all levels for improving youth participation in decision making.
• Organisation environment — The political representatives recognise and support youth participation in decision making

What should the tool be used to assess? 

The tool should be used to assess ONE youth political participation activity you have run which aims to enable young people to influence municipal decision making. An activity can be a single event, an ongoing initiative, or a short programme of activities. Before you start you should be clear exactly which activity you are assessing, as well as when this activity started and finished. For example, imagine you are working with a local youth council that has organised a youth event, as well as several other participatory activities. You could use the tool to assess the youth council and all of its activities over the previous year, or just the youth event itself. You can choose whichever option is most useful to you, but it is important to be clear what you are assessing before you start. The quick checklist in Section 1 will help you identify if the tool is suitable for your activity.