On Monday 10 November, we held our Youth Advisory Board meeting for Autumn Term, elected our Youth Co-Chairs for 2025-26 and launched into the academic year.
The Doorstep Youth Advisory board meets officially twice a year in addition to the regular Youth Co-Chair meetings, with regular decisions and conversations in-between.
In 2024-25, the YAB made choices about selection of touring shows, planned our summer AGM (and co-led it!), rewrote our Anti-Racism and Environmental Policies, gave constructive feedback on youth demographic data capture methods, empowered us to create a TikTok account and generated content for it, made decisions about termly artistic themes & projects, and helped out with key events like Playing in the Streets.
Much has been written and discussed recently about ‘youth-washing‘ (and here) (and here) (and here) – i.e. the concept that charities or other organisations might invite young people onto their boards as a performative demonstration of youth voice, but without any of the substance or actual power. We share these concerns and can see evidence of this occurring in the charity sector as ‘youth voice’ becomes in vogue or even required for organisations with little experience of how to facilitate these spaces.
However, it is our view that rather than critiquing this, instead it would be more helpful to talk actively about positive models which are working and where expertise in youth work, democratic decision-making, and facilitation might be carving out more effective and transformative spaces for decision-making collaboration with young people. Celebrating these kinds of demonstrations are more likely to lead to positive change in the sector, modelling best practice and inclusive authentic working.
We need to share transparently and honestly about what works, and also what’s hard, be clear about what we’re trying.
Here at Doorstep, we feel strongly that current charity sector models and methods of governance are entrenched in antiquated notions of procedure, a reality which is unfortunately continue to entrench inequalities. Governance model requirements need a radical revamp and rapid change to adequately consider how they become equitable, democratic and inclusive, and this will require a very different understanding of how governance functions in practice. We are inspired by the current work of Citizens in Power and New Art Exchange, and we want to celebrate and shine a light on the work of other partner youth-led organisations where young people’s voices are central to decision-making. (And if you’re going to read one thing about governance, read this by David Jubb... truly.)
We’ll continue to share our ongoing explorations, our Youth Co-Chairs reflections, our reflections, and those of the YAB.
Calling Adult Special Advisors:
We also want to welcome other adults into this space of experimentation, brave piloting, and genuine youth decision-making. We are currently seeking some new Adult Advisors to join our Adult Advisory Board. This board works in parallel and in increasing tandem and collaboration with our Youth Advisory Board in a bold new experimental model. We’ve been very lucky to have some incredible folks serve on this board over the past ten years and we really value the Adult board… could you be one of the next? See the open call here. It’s a very simple process to express interest.
Please do consider it. If you’ve never served on a board before, this could be a great first introduction to the experience. Maybe you have a background in youth work, or education. Maybe you have a background in HR or business or budgets or marketing or legal know-how. Maybe you’re a freelance teaching artist or you work at another organisation with some synergy or shared values. Maybe you’re a Torbay parent and you have lived experience of the challenges that we face here. Maybe you’re passionate about our work for a different reason? For any of the above, and lots more possibilities too, we’d love to hear from you.
