Involvement toolkit and resources

To do any job right you need the right tools! The resources in this toolkit helps you to ensure that your involvement work is good quality and effective.

Good Practice

Use this good practice guide to make sure your work will be of the highest standard.

Quality self-assessment

It is very important that work to consult and involve children and young people is high quality. The YorOK Voice and Involvement Group have established a short self assessment tool that allows you to assess the quality of your work.

Social networking sites

Social Network Sites (SNS) present opportunities to work with young people, families and communities but opportunities and risks go hand in hand. The opportunities and risks of most concern to young people (keeping in touch with friends and bullying respectively) are different from those most frequently highlighted in the mainstream media.

Consultation factsheets

Are you thinking of carrying out some consultation? It doesn't have to be a questionnaire! Find out about different ways of carrying out consultation with children and young people.

Supporting young people to take part in interviews

Children and young people can play an important role in supporting interviews as part of a recruitment process. You need to give some thought to ensure that it works well and isn't tokenistic. This section will help you plan to make young people's involvement in interviews effective.

Reward and recognition

Children and young people provide valuable contributions to services, local authorities and participation groups, and their involvement should be rewarded and/or recognised in some way. This toolkit will help you consider the best way of rewarding and/or recognising children and young people's participation and work.

Involving young people in volunteering

Young people have said they are interested in volunteering but that there are limited opportunities. This resource is designed to help you explore whether you can create young volunteer roles.

Involving disabled children

• Listen to me - The "Listen to Me" series of booklets include practical and innovative examples of how children can express their views. Their opinions are really important and have definitely shaped priorities for services in the City of York. Clearly some children and young people require more support to be involved and we know that parents and practitioners are eager to help them do this.

• Disability Toolkit - Are you looking for extra support and guidance when involving disabled children and young people in participation and decision making activities?
• Involve Me - The Involve Me resource aims to increase the involvement of people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) in decision making and consultation. The resource is the result of a three year project, supported by the Renton Foundation and run by Mencap in partnership with the British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD).