Including young people in policy development: A youth‐informed adaptation of a Policy Lab method

Young people should have a say in policies that affect them. Power imbalances and limiting their involvement to consultative processes in policymaking continue to be barriers to participation. Progress has been made to involve young people directly in policymaking, but barriers to their full participation persist. The aim of this research study was to emulate a Policy Lab to learn from young people how they could be better included in this policy development method. Their reported experience of the workshop and perspectives as young people were analysed using rapid qualitative analysis and used to inform adaptations of the method. Three themes were identified: providing more information, greater accessibility, and facilitating participation. Overall, the collective feedback from young people was focused on being prepared to participate and addressing power imbalances between youth and adult participants. Implications for practice are identified. We present an adaptation of the Policy Lab method to better include young people. Points for practitioners While the importance of involving young people in the development of policy that effects their lives is understood, oftentimes practices continue to limit or restrict this involvement through persistent barriers to their involvement. Young people recognise the barriers they face to being equally involved in workshop activities with adults and have ideas on how to address them to improve their direct involvement in policy development methods. This research presents adaptations to a policy development method through providing more information, greater accessibility, and facilitating participation; that also provides direction for policy practitioners more generally.