Executive summary

Municipal youth councils (MYCs) provide students an opportunity to collaborate and interact with their local government, thus fostering youth civic engagement. However, MYCs face increased challenges from limited resources, policy influence, and participant diversity. 

Successful MYCs including the San Francisco Youth Commission and the Overland Park Teen Council indicate that, if developed well, MYCs can provide a critical platform for youth to tackle emerging issues including climate change, homeliness, and more. Policy reforms should include increasing diversity among MYCs, expanding their authority, and securing further institutional support. As youth civic engagement continues to decline, the need to create these MYCs becomes even more critical.

Overview

A ‘municipal youth council’ is typically a program organized by a local city and made up of youth (typically those in highschool). Though these programs have many different names (teen councils, Mayor’s Youth Council, etc.), they aim to provide youth a platform to engage and advise decision-makers within their city. 

These programs may also differ by their structure. However, their central goals remain the same. Most programs include educational components that allow youth to gain exposure to their local government. This participation prepares youth to become engaged citizens and demonstrate their rights with respect to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child. 

Despite its benefits, creating a MYC can often face structural and infrastructure challenges as the municipality may lack the resources (staff, etc.) to develop a comprehensive MYC. Often, this insufficiency results in an MYC being created prior to formal planning, resulting in its eventual failure.

However, the benefits of an MYC are clear when executed clearly. Many MYCs tackle issues related to juvenile justice, crime prevention, education, and human rights. These programs enable youth to analyze the “existing social, economic, educational, and recreational programs” for youth in their local community.

Pointed Summary

• MYCs provide opportunities for students to become civically engaged.
• Common challenges include infrastructure difficulties, limited policy influence, and non diverse participation. 
• Some MYCs, such as the San Francisco Youth Commission and the Overland Park Teen Council, have been successful in accomplishing their goals.
• Policy reforms should focus on increasing inclusivity within the MYCs and expanding the influence of the MYC in the decision-making process within these local governments.
• MYC can provide youth an opportunity to participate further in government and ensure that they become capable advocates.

Relevance

The concern over the civic education of American youth continues to grow. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress included a civic test for eighth-grade students. This test indicated that only twenty-two percent of eighth-graders are proficient in civics. Though others attribute this decline as a transition to other forms of civic engagement, the lack of civic education continues to pose risk for youth engagement.

MYCs provide a valuable opportunity to counter this decline in civic education by providing “genuine engagement.” Evidence from the study by America’s Promise Alliance explains that three in ten youth people between 12 and 17 ages have received sufficient support from their community. This statistic indicates that youth are often the ones who experience the difficulties and challenges within a society, thus they also serve as a unique perspective. MYCs provide the opportunity for youth to share their input and actively resolve the issues that they have experienced.

According to CIRCLE, a non-partisan, independent research organization from Tufts University, the scope of an MYC’s impact expands to four primary areas: democracy, community, youth, and equality. MYCs can foster critical civic engagement that ensure that the youth voice is represented in the modern democratic system. Similarly, MYCs provide youth with a stronger relationship to their community. Youth themselves also benefit from MYCs as these programs can improve their own “academic performance” and “social-emotional well-being.” Finally, MYCs can be a critical transition to an equitable democracy that better captures the perspectives of those across all communities.

Current Stances

Research indicates the youth engagement is critical; however, divergence occurs in regard to the scope/type of youth engagement. 

One major challenge that modern MYCs face is from adult attitudes. Many adults hold “problematic views” toward the skills that youth hold including judgement/prejudice based on their age/maturity, and their legal rights. These perceptions combined create an environment where adults lack the ability to see the true potential of youth and their contributions to society.

A secondary challenge that modern MYCs face is diversity. Often MYCs have difficulty finding those from minority groups who would like to participate. However, as researchers with the J Youth Adolesc indicate the benefits of youth civic engagement are applicable to racial minority youth. Though research is limited in this area, researchers have suggested that MYCs/youth civic engagement can benefit underserved youth.

However, as indicated the benefits of youth engagement is clear. As Pancer explains in “The Psychology of Citizenship and Civic Engagement,” youth that engage in some form of civic engagement are less likely to “abuse drugs or alcohol, smoke, engage in delinquent acts, drop out of school, get pregnant, or experience mental illness.” This belief is shared by a Stanford paper on youth engagement, that indicates that achieving youth civic engagement can promote their collaboration and impact in the community. The author, Aguilar, cites their own personal experience with civic engagement as a youth.

Tried Policy

Numerous cities across the United States have successfully created MYCs. Historically, in Hampton, Virginia the City Council developed the Coalition for Youth which became one of the earliest MYCs in 1990. These programs provided youth the opportunity to engage in neighborhood planning activities. As the program developed, Hampton’s Planning Department further incorporated youth in city planning. Youth eventually became a formal part of the Parks & Recreation Youth Advisory Board, providing them the opportunity to become voting members. Hampton’s MYC has won numerous awards from the Jostens Foundation and Search Institute and the Ash Institute and Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In San Francisco, the San Francisco Youth Commission was established when youth advocates approached their elected leaders with the idea of a MYC. This commission was more formal and involved a chairperson, formal City Hall meeting, and policy-making activities. These activities included the expansion of transitional housing for foster youth, conferences on drugs and alcohol abuse, and direct meetings with elected leaders on these topics and more. The commission also provided numerous benefits to the participants. For instance, one participant Angelo, who was previously homeless was later inspired to tackle youth homelessness and obtain a public service career. Thus, the San Francisco Youth Commission also provides an example of a successful MYC. 

In a report from Boston University of Social Work, researchers examined twenty-four municipalities in the Boston metropolitan area and determined that these programs can provide a potential benefit for communities. For instance, these MYCs successfully provide students an access point into local government. These MYCs engaged in both policy-oriented activities and assessment-oriented activities. The policy-oriented activities provided youth an opportunity to cite their input on local issues; whereas, the assessment-oriented activities enabled the MYCs to conduct evidence-based polls for a broader audience of youth in their community. These assessment-oriented activities indicate that, if done successfully, MYCs can expand to challenge concerns over their inability to represent all perspectives. 

Similarly, in the City of Overland Park, they have developed a Teen Council program. This program differs from the San Francisco Youth Commission as it focuses less on policy-oriented activities. Instead, it aims to provide students with an understanding of local government through service projects and learning sessions. However, it does offer students the opportunity to serve as a Youth Liaison to plural authority committees including the Parks & Recreation Advisory Council. On these committees, the students have the opportunity to engage in more policy-oriented activities. Despite the smaller size and newer presence of the Overland Park Teen Council, it has successfully established a presence in the City of Overland Park and includes more than fifty local youth.

Though the four prior instances illustrate successful MYCs, it should be acknowledged that even then there are barriers to MYC creation and maintenance. For one, they often struggle to develop a broader range of youth engagement. The research base on MYCs is also relatively underdeveloped, providing a need for more analysis within this subject area. And as identified earlier, infrastructure barriers exist and often prevent new MYCs from being created in smaller and budget-constrained cities.

Policy Problem

A. Stakeholders

Key stakeholders in the effectiveness of MYCs include youth themselves, local government officials, and other “adult allies.” Youth themselves include the need to include a diverse perspective of youth. In the recruitment of youth for MYCs, schools can often become a key stakeholder as they serve to help recruit students to participate. Adult support from local government, usually the Mayor or City Manager, can be critical. These local leaders need to actively endorse the creation of an MYC and support it throughout its creation. Beyond these leaders, it is also critical to have an adult staff member who can serve as a liaison between the youth and local government. These adult members would serve a more administrative role within the council.

B. Risks of Indifference

MYCs serve as “double arrow[s].” Youth within a community often need tools and opportunities to grow that can be provided via the MYC. And the local government may also need the perspective that an MYC can bring. However, in this double arrow function, it is critical that both parties maintain involvement that is genuine and meaningful. Absent this degree of involvement, MYCs can become a token of youth representation, but serve to benefit neither party.

C. Nonpartisan Reasoning

MYCs can provide a platform for youth to engage in issues that impact their community, but may be polarizing in nature. Thus, these MYCs tend to focus on local and nonpartisan issues that youth can provide unique input on. 

Firstly, MYC can serve as a platform for discussing climate related issues. Climate change poses an increasing risk to the future of humanity. Thus, as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group states, youth can serve to provide input alongside cities to create “meaningful and inclusive, climate action.” Their “Youth Engagement Playbook for Cities” is a proposed coordinated strategy to MYCs. It includes eight specific strategies including the use of social media and understanding the goals of this new generation (youth). MYCs can aid the Playbook in accomplishing its climate goals by pairing local youth with their local government directly.

Secondly, youth movements can provide insight on sensitive topics including gun violence. As indicated by Tufts University’s CIRCLE, the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida drove many student activists to engage in youth civic engagement. This engagement includes the foundation of Never Again MDS which has lobbied for anti-gun violence legislation and worked with national and local elected leaders. Through this example, it is clear that when given opportunity, youth have an important perspective on issues that currently plague the United States (eg. gun violence). Further developing this engagement through MYCs can be a critical opportunity for cities to harness the power of youth. 

In addition to tackling major issues through MYC discourse, the National Civic League indicates that participating in MYCs can “facilitate career interest and development in public service,” amongst youth. Public sector recruitment has been declining as the government appears to be losing a viable talent pool. Thus, creating MYCs can directly challenge this declining recruitment by introducing the idea of public-sector careers to youth while simultaneously engaging them on community topics.

Similarly, a recent poll from the Harvard Kennedy School demonstrated that “more than half of young Americans” will be voting in the 2024 Presidential Election. Though their support is not unanimous on key issues, this contribution to the voter base indicates a healthy democracy. MYCs can often encourage youth to become future voters as they often include activities that enable youth to vote on key community issues. For instance, many MYCs enable youth to work on capital project proposals. Thus, many of these youth are encouraged to later vote once they reach eighteen years of age. 

Policy Options

1. Increase Diversity and Representation: One major difficulty current MYCs face involves the diversity amongst their participants. Many MYCs lacked economic and academic diversity. Most participants were from upper-middle class families and were considered “high achievers” in their high schools. Though this demographic is important to consider, it also remains important to consider including the perspectives of youth with differing perspectives. The National Civic League explores how it can be important to consider “race/ethnicity, economic status, immigrant origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, and ability/disability” in addition to their background, “youth in foster care, teen parents, immigrant youth,” and more. To achieve this degree of diversity, the Seattle Mayor’s Council reserves two spots each year for homeless youth on their thirty-eight member council to ensure that all youth are represented. Despite the clear benefits of increasing diversity, achieving diversity especially for “historically and contemporary marginalized youth” can be difficult. As researchers from DNA Global, University of San Francisco, Tufts University, University of California, Berkeley, and Salisbury University indicate that programming amongst these youth may differ from those typically applied in an MYC. However, the support from MYCs can be beneficial in assisting the existing or nonexistent support networks that these youth have access to. Diversity amongst these MYC programs can be critical to not only the youth themselves, but also the city’s future development. Many municipalities would benefit from hearing the perspectives that youth across their city have to offer on critical topics.

2. Expand Council Authority: Some existing MYCs possess the ability to vote and/or draft legislation. For instance, the Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council (not technically an MYC, but similar function) has the authority to introduce legislation. The Global Youth Council Guide suggests that all MYCs should engage in policy development or assist in policy recommendations. They also can provide feedback to elected leaders on policy decisions; however, an MYC’s ability to directly impact policy can be critical. Often, the issues that these MYCs tackle involve legislation in order to achieve change. However, it should be noted that some MYCs have chosen to purposely exclude direct policy development and focus on policy recommendations/feedback. For instance, the Overland Park Teen Council’s Youth Liaison component involves students serving on a variety of plural authority councils, however these students do not have voting power. Despite this inability to vote, the City of Overland Park has indicated that youth simply attending these meetings can provide valuable feedback to city staff and elected leaders. Thus, the expansion of council authority should depend on the goals of the council as there is not a one-size-fits-all approach toward the amount of power that should be allocated to MYCs.

3. Increase Institutional Support: As identified earlier, adult stakeholders are critical to the success of an MYC. In one city, the Mayor’s attendance to the MYC’s events was seen to be an important part of the program’s success. Thus, this emphasizes the need to first establish the role of stakeholders and their commitment level in an MYC. Similarly, the part of local government that the MYC chooses to interact with can also be critical. An MYC should take careful considerations in determining which departments would benefit most from youth perspectives. However, it should be noted that attaching youth to a neutral and overlapping department can be useful as it prevents MYC from becoming polarized or overly narrow in scope. In some cities, the creation of an MYC can be counterproductive. For instance, for many cities, it can be beneficial to have a full-time staff member dedicated to the MYC. This does place questions on the budget allocated to an MYC and how best to increase it.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Though challenges exist in the development and maintenance of a MYC, their benefit is still evident. Thus, existing and future MYCs should consider the policy options identified in developing their own program. In doing so, they can present youth in their community with the opportunity to be actively engaged citizens. They will also in turn benefit their own city’s development in addressing issues such as climate change, education, human rights, etc.

I advocate for MYCs not only based on the reviews on literature, but also because I participated in an MYC. Since freshman year, I have been involved in the Overland Park Teen Council and have had the valuable opportunity to serve as the Vice President and a Youth Liaison to three committees. In each committee, I have interacted with city staff, elected leaders, and other community members to discuss critical Parks & Recreation issues. This opportunity has granted me the opportunity to directly impact my community. I truly believe in the value of MYCs and the impact they can have on youth’s relationship to civic engagement.

Future research directions can include evaluating youth’s perspectives on MYCs. Though research exists with staff or other stakeholders within an MYC, there is a defined research gap in the perspectives of youth within an MYC. Many papers focused on the best practices for MYCs include adult perspectives on developing such programs, but do not include the participants’ insights. This missing perspective can be critical as MYCs are fundamentally designed for encouraging youth participation.

Additionally, it may be necessary to examine the presence of MYCs in a more digitized world. Most MYCs choose to abide by the structured nature of the municipality which may contrast with the laissez-faire youth culture. Examining this intersection may benefit the development and recruitment process for MYCs.

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Acknowledgment

The Institute for Youth in Policy wishes to acknowledge Paul Kramer, Carlos Bindert, Gwen Singer, and other contributors for developing and maintaining the Programming Department within the Institute.

References

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