Making Boards accessible to young people
A report from The Social Change Agency estimates that the average age of a UK Board Trustee is over 60 and the Young Trustee Movement report says that only 3% of Trustees are under 30.
While these are UK statistics, they give an estimate of the significant under-representation of young people on Boards. Given the importance of the role of Trustees in leading, controlling and supervising both public and third-sector organisations it is critical that young people are both:
Given more opportunities to join Boards
Supported to participate meaningfully as Board members
There are a number of pieces of advice on the first point – getting young people on Boards – available including:
Getting Young People Onto Your Trustee Board from YouthLink Scotland
Article 12 of the UNCRC
However, advice on the second point – Supporting young people to participate meaningfully as Board members – is not as readily available. This resource is designed to fill that gap and support both public sector and third sector organisations to ensure that once they have recruited young people onto their Board, the appropriate practices are in place to ensure both the young people and the organisation benefit to the maximum extent possible.
When developing this resource through consultation with the Scottish Youth Parliament’s youth-led Board, young people also fed back that this advice would be relevant to involving young people in other high-level strategic meetings. The advice in this resource is specific to boards and strategic meetings, and should be used in tandem with the AIM The Right Way checklists which has more general support for developing young people’s participation that is accessible, inclusive, and meaningful.
A plain text version of the making Boards accessible to young people resource can be downloaded here.
