Introduction

Youth voice is often invoked in policy and practice but too often remains tokenistic, confined to consultation or advisory groups with little impact on decision-making. Drawing on learning from NE Youth’s regional delivery within the national Peer Action Collective (PAC) programme, this article argues that youth voice must be understood as a driver of systems change rather than an end in itself. Writing in my role as Head of Youth Work & Programmes at NE Youth, I reflect on how youth-led research and action in Gateshead created pathways into decision-making spaces, from local funding decisions to national policy engagement. While youth-facing outputs such as the Explore More. Do More. Gateshead directory highlight the creativity and resilience of young people, it is the translation of voice into institutional reform that is most significant (Gateshead Council, 2025).

This argument is grounded in participation theory, particularly Hart’s (1992) Ladder of Participation and Lundy’s (2007) model of voice, which both caution against equating consultation with influence. The publication of the government’s new national youth strategy, Youth Matters, makes this discussion timely. Initial reflections emphasise that the significance of the strategy will be judged less by its intent than by implementation, and by whether commitments to participation translate into resourced structures that shift power in practice (Weavers, 2025).

The Peer Action Collective: National Architecture

Launched in 2021, Peer Action Collective was a £12.7 million investment led by the Youth Endowment Fund, the #iwill Fund (a joint investment between The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) and the Co-op Group, with delivery support from The Young Foundation. Its purpose was ambitious: to empower young people aged 10–25 to investigate the root causes of violence and injustice in their communities, and to act on their findings (Youth Endowment Fund, 2021). Across England and Wales, over 120 peer researchers and social action leads were recruited and trained to design local studies, gather evidence and lead social action projects (The Young Foundation, 2023). NE Youth’s delivery formed part of the two-year phase within the North East region.

What made Peer Action Collective distinct was its research-to-action model. Young people were not only generating knowledge but were resourced and supported to use it, through community projects, local campaigns and direct engagement with decision-makers. In practice, this meant embedding youth-led structures into every stage: co-designing research tools, analysing findings, developing recommendations and presenting these to funders, commissioners and policymakers.

As one peer researcher reflected:

We weren’t just asked what we thought – we were expected to act on it. That made it feel real.

 

Gateshead In Focus: From Research To Influence

At NE Youth, our Peer Action Collective work in Gateshead was rooted in relationships with young people and embedded in strengths-based practice. We trained and employed a team of peer researchers to investigate local priorities, particularly around youth safety, access to services and opportunities for meaningful engagement. Their research was co-designed to generate findings that could be translated into influence locally, regionally and nationally.

One of the most powerful outcomes was our engagement with Members of Parliament. In 2025, we facilitated a visit to Parliament where eight local MPs heard directly from peer researchers. For many of the young people involved, this was their first time entering such political spaces. As one peer researcher put it:

It was strange at first, like, why would MPs listen to us? But when they did, I realised that our voices actually had weight.

This ability to connect youth-led evidence with high-level decision-makers was also evident in our relationship with the Violence Reduction Unit. The Violence Reduction Unit was receptive to Peer Action Collective findings, and over time this influenced how funding was distributed in the region, including investment in youth-led interventions. Rather than decisions being made solely by professionals, young people’s evidence helped guide investment priorities, including forming a Youth Panel to review funding applications.

Another strand of systems engagement came through the Youth Voice Toolkit, which has gained national traction, including interest from the Department for Education and other departments exploring participatory approaches. For us, this was significant: it signalled that youth-led research was not only relevant at a local level but had the potential to inform national frameworks.

Not all outputs were designed for systems-level influence. Developed in collaboration with Gateshead Council, the Explore More. Do More. Gateshead. youth directory improved service access for young people. While an important achievement, it serves here mainly as a contrast: youth-facing outputs can empower individuals, but the greater challenge lies in reshaping the systems that govern young people’s lives.

From Voice To Systems Change: What Enabled Influence

The learning suggests that youth voice translates into systems change when supported by specific enabling conditions. Five were particularly influential:

• Youth-led agenda setting – peer researchers co-created research questions, making the work legitimate in the eyes of policymakers.
• Direct access – young people presented findings directly to MPs, commissioners and funders, not filtered by adults.
• Resourced action – project funds allowed findings to become tangible outputs.
• Sustained relationships – ongoing dialogue with the Violence Reduction Unit embedded youth perspectives in funding strategy.
• National credibility – collective outputs such as the Youth Voice Toolkit secured engagement from national bodies.

Outcomes We Can Reasonably Claim

Peer Action Collective alone did not reform systems, but it helped make change possible. At the practice level, youth workers reported a renewed emphasis on participatory methods. Within NE Youth, peer researchers are now embedded in organisational strategy and governance, altering how programmes are designed and evaluated.

At the systems level, MPs now expect youth perspectives in local discussions. The Violence Reduction Unit has begun modelling youth-informed funding allocation. The Department for Education’s engagement with the Youth Voice Toolkit suggests youth participation is moving from rhetoric to resource.

For young people, the impact was transformative. As one peer researcher reflected:

I always thought research was something adults did about us. Peer Action Collective showed me it could be something we do, for us – and that people in power had to listen.

Tensions And Trade-Offs

Systems change through youth voice is never straightforward. Throughout the project, several tensions surfaced that reflected the complexity of genuine participation. Representation, for instance, often became a double-edged sword. Young people valued the opportunity to speak in influential spaces, yet some felt the weight of being seen as spokespeople for all young people, rather than for their own lived experiences.

Safeguarding also required careful navigation. Too much adult protection risked diluting authenticity and turning participation into performance; too little, however, exposed young people to unnecessary vulnerability. Balancing autonomy and safety demanded continual dialogue and trust.

Another tension lay in the pace of change. Young people’s enthusiasm and appetite for rapid progress frequently clashed with the slower, procedural rhythms of institutional decision-making. For practitioners, this gap between urgency and bureaucracy was a constant negotiation.

Finally, there was the question of evidence and action. The demand for methodological rigour sometimes conflicted with the immediacy of acting on young people’s findings. Peer Action Collective mitigated this by resourcing both credible data collection and youth-led action, proving that evidence and influence do not need to be mutually exclusive.

Situating In Participation Theory

Participation theory has long cautioned against equating the inclusion of young people’s voices with meaningful influence. Hart’s (1992) Ladder of Participation remains a useful heuristic for understanding how participatory initiatives can position young people at varying distances from decision-making power, with consultation and decoration occupying lower rungs that offer expression without agency. In contrast, the Peer Action Collective provided glimpses of higher rungs, where young people initiated lines of inquiry and shaped how findings were taken forward.

Lundy’s (2007) model develops this critique further by emphasising that voice requires not only space and audience but also influence. Without this final element, participation risks becoming performative rather than transformative. The engagement with Members of Parliament, Violence Reduction Units and the Department for Education illustrate what influence can look like in practice when youth-led evidence is taken seriously within decision-making spaces.

However, critical youth work scholarship also highlights the structural limits of participation. In his Manifesto for Youth Work, Davies (2005) argues that participatory practices are shaped, and often constrained, by wider political and institutional forces, including funding regimes, performance cultures and policy priorities. Revisiting this argument, Davies (2015) cautions that participation can be absorbed into existing systems without fundamentally redistributing power, particularly where decision-making authority and control over resources remain firmly held by adults. Farthing (2012) similarly warns against celebratory narratives of youth voice, noting that participation may serve to legitimise predetermined agendas rather than challenge them. This echoes Weavers’ (2025) caution that participation initiatives can become cyclical and fragile when they rely on individual champions rather than a sustained culture of participation backed by long-term funding and capacity.

Taken together, this literature suggests that even where young people act as co-authors of research or contributors to decision-making, participation does not operate in a vacuum. Youth voice, no matter how well designed, remains shaped by entrenched political, institutional and economic power structures. This challenges overly optimistic accounts that position youth voice as a solution in itself and instead prompts a more difficult question: under what conditions are institutions willing to be changed by young people’s contributions?

From Tokenism To Systems Voice: A Call To Action

The publication of the Youth Matters strategy provides a timely policy context for this discussion. Framed around renewed commitments to participation, co-production and young people’s agency, the strategy reflects a familiar policy ambition to place youth voice at the heart of decision-making. However, as previous participation literature suggests, the presence of such commitments does not guarantee their translation into practice. Indeed, Weavers (2025) argues that youth participation has featured in successive youth strategies, but that policy rhetoric is not always delivered in practice, particularly when participation depends on short-term projects, limited capacity and unfunded commitments.

Read alongside the learning discussed here, Youth Matters raises critical questions about implementation.. The challenge, therefore, is not whether youth voice is referenced in policy, but whether systems are designed to respond when young people’s contributions unsettle established priorities and equate to real systems change.

Peer Action Collective shows that youth voice can shape systems, but only if it is embedded as systems voice. Weavers also notes that without stronger statutory footing and secure investment, youth service provision remains vulnerable to local financial pressures and political change (Weavers, 2025). The challenge now is to normalise youth-led governance across sectors. Translating these insights into practice demands coordinated commitment:

• Funders: resource action phases, require co-decision-making and invest in bridging roles.
• Policymakers: embed youth co-design in commissioning, mandate participatory governance and reference youth-led evidence.
• Practitioners: integrate peer researchers into governance, close feedback loops and safeguard agency without silencing.
• Academics: develop ethical frameworks, support youth-led dissemination and evaluate influence not just engagement.

These changes will not emerge from goodwill alone; they require structural commitment to redistribute power and resource.

Conclusion

Through the lens of participation theory, the Peer Action Collective illustrates both the possibilities and limits of youth voice in practice. It reinforces Lundy’s (2007) assertion that voice without influence risks becoming performative, while also aligning with Davies’ (2005; 2015) warning that participation can be absorbed by systems without fundamentally redistributing power. The learning from this programme suggests that systems change depends not only on creating opportunities for young people to speak, but on institutional willingness to adapt in response to what is said.

Peer Action Collective was proof of concept: young people can move beyond being respondents to becoming system actors, influencing money flows, policy content and organisational practice. If funders and policymakers continue to treat youth voice as symbolic, disillusionment will grow. The provocation I end with is this: youth voice must become systems voice. Anything less is tokenism repackaged.