Youth council

Youth councils are a form of youth voice engaged in community decision-making. Youth councils exist on local, state, provincial, regional, national, and international levels among governments, non governmental organizations (NGO), schools, and other entities.

For over a decade, the UK's British Youth Council have operated the UK Youth Parliament. Notable for being the only other organisation able to meet in the House of Commons, all young people between the ages of 11-18 can vote for their local Member of Youth Parliament. Additionally, the Council also operate the UK Young Mayor's Network, NHS Youth Forum and the House of Commons' Youth Select Committee.

The history of youth councils extends back to the early 20th century, when communists and Nazis formed youth-led decision-making bodies for the purpose of propaganization and recruitment. Youth councils have seen a resurgence in Western Europe under the advisement of the European Youth Forum; in the United States and Canada organizations such as The Freechild Project and Points of Light Foundation have been instrumental. Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is also widely credited with promoting youth councils.

Youth councils have many purposes. Many are consultative bodies for more representative political bodies at all levels of government. The extent to which they have been established at all levels varies, as the United States, Canada, Western and Northern Europe have all seen a proliferation of these bodies. How they are composed varies, with some youth councils being elected by young people in the community, while others are handpicked by political officials or elected by youth NGOs.

In Europe there is a consolidated tradition of representative youth platforms at Pan-regional, National and local level. At European level the European Youth Forum constitutes the platforms which gathers more than 93 National Youth Council and International Non-Governmental Youth Organizations. It's a non-governmental structure which serves its members and applies the principles of democratic representation, transparency through its internal democratic system (election of the board and the president). At the Institutional level, the Council of Europe has a specific co-managed system to run its youth sector. Governmental and non-Governmental representative co-decide upon the priorities of the youth program of the institution and they also co-manage the activities which are run in two youth centres in Strasbourg and Budapest. The Youth Constituency is called "Advisory Council on Youth" (AC) beside the co-decision mechanism internal to the Directorate for Youth and Sport has the possibility to advise the Institution on any matter which affect young people and which is tackled by Council of Europe. At National level there are National Youth Councils which are similar structures to the European Youth Forum and often there are regional and local council which adopts various kind of constituencies and organizations case by case an example of which is the Scottish Youth Parliament. Another example is the PAL-TIN, which is a national alliance of local youth councils in Romania. In the United Kingdom, there is a wide variety of youth councils. Some represent nationally such as the British Youth Council, whereas some youth councils like the Dartford Youth Council represent their own borough. Additionally, some youth councils, for example the Greek Youth Parliament allows for the participation not only of youth from within the country, but also countries with large Greek communities such as Germany and Australia. Among 1800 local youth and children's councils exist in France. 500 are members of an umbrella born in 1991 and called Anacej (National Association of youth and children councils).

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