Let's Talk About Youth Engagement

What we're learning about youth engagement

• What if the interview itself is the barrier? Rethinking recruitment when traditional formats screen out the very people you're trying to reach.
• Can onboarding start years before someone's hired? What it looks like when today's participant is tomorrow's employee, and why that changes what "culture fit" even means.
• Is turnover actually a sign of failure? Reframing a young team member moving on as evidence the model is working, not a problem to fix.
• Why do young people need reassurance more than instruction? The gap between having capability and having the confidence to use it.
• Is it possible to set someone up to leave well? What it means to support disengagement as carefully as engagement.

Why this conversation matters

Youth engagement gets discussed constantly, but rarely broken into the actual stages, recruitment, onboarding, day-to-day engagement, where things go right or wrong. Getting it right shapes whether young people show up at all, and whether the ones who do stay long enough to benefit. Getting it wrong looks like good intentions and high turnover.

What this resource offers

This is for anyone responsible for bringing young people into an organisation and keeping them there, whether that's recruitment, culture, or program delivery, and finding the standard playbook doesn't quite fit.