Young people have the fundamental right to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes when it comes to programs or policies that affect their lives. Meaningful participation should take place in all stages of decision-making: during development, implementation and evaluation. No matter if the program/policy is big or small, young people should be included.

Young people not only have the right to participate, there’s also an advantage of their involvement: if the voice of young people is heard, programs and policies can become more effective and can be adapted to the actual needs of young people. Most programs that are developed for young people are not developed by young people. This limits the effectiveness of the program.

To help solve this issue CHOICE for Youth and Sexuality has developed the Flower of Participation! The Flower of Participation is a tool that uses the metaphor of a blooming flower to describe the different forms of youth participation and how it can grow and flourish in meaningful ways.