Open Youth Infrastructure

What do we mean by infrastructure?

Simply put, we mean:

• The digital and data tools
• Resources
• Standards and governance
• The people to develop, use, manage, and maintain the above

that enable us to:

• Help young people express what they want and need: to find services and opportunities, to learn and be empowered as they progress on their path, to feed back on their experiences and to support others along their journeys.
• Help youth organisations understand what young people want and need, to market themselves and be found by the right young people, provide an excellent experience and outcome, continuously learn and improve and connect young people to the right next step.
• Help funders, policymakers and other broader stakeholders to know what young people want and need, how well services match those wants and needs, where the gaps are, what’s not working and what is, and how young people flow through pathways of multiple services and opportunities to achieve their ultimate goals.

Why do we need infrastructure in the youth sector?

The youth sector is under huge pressure so it can be hard to justify investing in infrastructure when there is a threat to basic services.

But without digital and data infrastructure, it is impossible for the sector to achieve its potential:

• Young people cannot reliably find the best services and opportunities to meet their needs
• Youth charities cannot reliably reach the young people who could benefit from their services
• Young people cannot express their changing needs, so services cannot adapt
• Inequality is perpetuated as young people who lack connections and access to services and support are least likely to find the help they need and deserve
• Funders and policymakers cannot understand the landscape – what young people want and need, how that’s changing, what services exist to meet needs, who is missing out

Without effective infrastructure, we are restricted to making bets on individual organisations while working in the dark. Perhaps even more importantly, infrastructure is required for us to achieve greater equity in the youth sector.

What do we mean by open?

We will be working collaboratively and openly throughout this project. This means:

• Open sharing of key findings, ideas and processes.
• Different opportunities to feed in during open meetings, open documents or meetings as required.
• A collaborative approach, working across sectors with; youth and signposting organisations, Government, tech, and funders.
• Diverse opinions sought throughout from a range of stakeholders, ensuring everyone feels welcome to be part of the process.
• Being agile in our approach to project management and open to changes along the way within restrictions of the budget and timeframe.

Project aims and focus areas

This project aims to help develop open and collective infrastructure for the youth sector that can have a transformative impact on outcomes for young people, because it’s open to all young people and youth organisations to use, reuse, and build on.

Changing infrastructure takes time and money and this project aims to look at what could be possible. We will be looking at governance, design, data and sustainability to explore possibilities to improve the full journey for young people finding the support they need.

This project has openness at its heart and we want you to be involved and help us shape better digital and data infrastructure for the youth sector and young people.

Focus areas 

• Governance : Digital and data infrastructure needs to be collectively governed and owned if it is to work for common purpose, and be accountable to young people
• Design: Collective governance leads to collaborative design.
• Design from the margins: We will focus on designing for and with the young people who are currently least likely to find and get the opportunities they need and deserve.
• Development: With the right governance and design approaches in place, we will still need to work out how tools, products and services should be developed in alignment with those core principles.
• Adoption: Through research and stakeholder engagement we will explore how to ensure that the tools that are developed are eagerly adopted by young people, youth organisations and wider stakeholders.
• Openness and Connectivity: if we are able to develop collective and shared infrastructure in the youth sector, we have a hope of being able to take a powerful offer to the technology sector – to connect to what we are building, and build on strong and purposeful foundations.

Photo by Jonathan J. Castellon on Unsplash