Youth Engagement Network
When young people find a place where they belong, everything changes.
Our Youth Engagement Network report brings together two years of learning from 20 library services and 236 young people who have been involved in our Youth Engagement Network programme. It explores what’s worked, what we’ve learnt, and the impact co-creating with young people is having on children, young people and library services. It’s full of evidence and reflections from across the programme, showing the value and potential of working alongside young people as partners in shaping libraries.
The Youth Engagement Network is a national programme that brings children and young people together with their local library services to shape what libraries look and feel like.
It creates space for young people to share their ideas, influence decisions, and co-create activities, spaces and services that reflect what matters to them.
By working in partnership with library staff, young people help make libraries more welcoming, empowering and inspiring places.
Want to feel more confident making the case for co-creation with young people?
Why not download our advocacy toolkit. This toolkit uses evidence from our Youth Engagement Network report along with key messages you can use in conversations with managers, colleagues, partners and funders to help you make the case for co-creation within your own library service.
The network supports library teams develop skills in working co-creatively with children and young people.
This distributes power more equitably, rising their potential and building thriving communities of the future. It’s a win-win and what the future library is all about.
We’re already seeing the positive results.
Are you a young person?
This is your invite to be a part of creating change.
Something I didn’t know before is how fun the library is.
Young person
It was my first time co-creating, but it worked out really well and it has given me the confidence to do it again. It was great to have the training and support sessions from Libraries Rising to fall back on and know that we could share ideas with others around the country if needed.
Library staff
It’s enabled a group that feel that there are barriers in their lives anyway, to find somewhere that they feel valued and that they feel slightly more understood, that there aren’t specific expectations on them as such.
Library staff
The young people loved the idea of being involved in decision making. They were interested in processes and the carbon reduction possibilities libraries offer.
Library staff