Principles

The six principles of quality youth social action

A key goal of the #iwill campaign is to enable organisations to understand and recognise high quality in youth social action.

Before the launch of the campaign in 2013, Cabinet Office, The Young Foundation and Institute of Voluntary Research consulted with many organisations across the youth, voluntary, education, business and faith communities. They established an agreed set of six principles that underpin high quality, meaningful youth social action. They are laid out below and you can download more details about these principles in this slide deck pdf, or view the full report here.

We know that youth social action takes place in a range of contexts and can mean formal or informal activities, in any setting; for example online, extracurricular, in clubs and groups, informally, or as part of structured programmes.

In all these contexts, we expect that youth social action which applies the above principles, will be able to demonstrate a clear double benefit – to the young person who takes part by developing their skills, character and life opportunities as well as to a community, cause or social problem. The six principles also help promote inclusive practices so that all young people are able to participate and benefit.