Youth panel made recommendations to the Danish government on the well-being of children and youth

In March 2021, the Danish government formed a youth panel and asked it to make recommendations on how to reduce the discontent resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. The panel comprised 15 representatives of student organisations, civil society organisations, youth political associations and others. The work was led by the headmaster of an upper secondary school. Over a period of six weeks, the panel met six times in online meetings and came up with 15 recommendations on how to improve the well-being of children and youth in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. The recommendations were handed over to Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen, as well as Minister for Children and Education Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil in May 2021.
One key recommendation was that resuming civil society activities must be a priority so that children and youth could feel a sense of community and engage in meaningful after-school activities. When the recommendations were published, the DUF (Danish Youth Council), highlighted them in the media by pointing out that volunteers had worked hard to maintain the activities for youth in civil society during the lockdown, but that new political priorities were needed. The work was successful as social activities in civil society were given more resources.[1]
In May 2022, Christine Ravn from the DUF reflected on the participatory process resulting in the recommendations, her observation is that while some of the recommendations were implemented, others were not.
“The recommendations were not binding and more could have been done to implement them. But one of the most important recommendations; more money for social activities was implemented.” (Christine Ravn Lund, DUF – Danish Youth Council)
On the process itself, she could see that there was room for improvement but concluded that given the circumstances it was acceptable:
“The process was very speedy and not very flexible in order to be able to implement the recommendations right away. But it worked alright given the context.” (Christine Ravn Lund, DUF – Danish Youth Council)
Key learning: During a crisis, there may not be time to design the perfect process. Even though minimum standards of qualitative participation must be maintained, inviting children and youth to a flawed process is better than not involving them at all.
 
Go to content