Youth Policy Is Not Built Through a Single Decision: How One Community Is Building a System of Opportunities for Young People

Youth policy at the local level is about more than a youth centre, a youth council or a series of activities. Each of these tools only becomes meaningful when it responds to young people’s real needs and helps them take their next steps: learn, find like-minded people, bring their ideas to life and have a say in the life of their community.

In Zolotonosha, this process did not begin with a ready-made system either. Oksana Cherviakva, Head of the Cherkasy Branch of the Association of Ukrainian Youth Centers, shares how the community developed its approach, how it adapted as young people’s needs changed, and why communities should not create tools simply because they already exist somewhere else.

We started with youth work and only later began building the infrastructure and participation mechanisms around it

In our case, everything started not with a top-down decision, but with observing young people and talking to them. I worked for the local children’s services, was involved in non-formal education, spent a lot of time in educational institutions and enjoyed organising activities for young people. In essence, this was youth work, although we did not call it that at the time.

Even then, I noticed that young people often became more active when there were adults around who were willing to pay attention, listen to them, take their opinions seriously and give them an opportunity to do something themselves. Even to make mistakes. That is how they gain their own experience and grow.

So our first step was to establish a volunteer group within the youth organisation Youth Development Centre. Gradually, more young people became involved. They helped with activities and city events, but they also needed a place of their own.

In 2019, with the support of the NGO Buduyemo Ukrainu Razom (BUR), our youth organisation created the first youth space in the community, based at a local college. In 2021, we moved to the district cultural centre.

Gradually, a stable youth community began to form around our ArtSpace, and we started paying more attention to creating opportunities for young leaders to grow. So, in the beginning, we focused on youth work. Only later did we start building the infrastructure and participation mechanisms needed to support it.

Youth work is better understood as an environment of opportunities and support programmes than as a series of events

At the beginning, we identified several things. First, young people lacked an accessible place where they could simply be themselves, socialise and bring their own ideas to life. Second, there were few opportunities for non-formal education, leadership development, volunteering and civic engagement. Third, we saw a certain gap between young people and the community. Young people often did not understand how exactly they could influence decisions, while adult institutions did not always know how to engage young people properly.

There was also another important issue: unequal access to opportunities. Young people living in the centre of the city and those living in the villages of the community had very different opportunities. That is why we eventually started developing mobile youth work. Over time, it became clear that individual youth activities were not enough. At first, we could organise an event and see 20 active young people taking part. But what happens next?

If young people attend a training, gain new knowledge and then return to an environment where there is no space, team or mechanism for putting their ideas into practice, the impact quickly disappears. That is why I believe youth work is better understood not as a series of events, but as an environment of opportunities and support programmes for young people.

It is not enough to tell a young person about volunteering or youth participation once. They need to be able to come to a youth centre, find like-minded people, receive support from a youth worker, develop an initiative and then see the results of their own actions. This experience led us to develop tools that could help build a sustainable system for the youth centre and create the foundations for long-term youth policy.

Every tool should respond to a specific need

For me, systematic youth policy means that young people have more than one event a year. They have an entire system of opportunities for development, participation and influence. In our case, this means bringing several components together.

The youth centre serves as a place for non-formal education and volunteering, particularly for teenagers taking their first steps in civic engagement.

The Youth Council brings together people who are ready to represent young people’s needs in the community, explain how local government works, and advise local professionals on creating a more youth-friendly environment.

Youth organisations and initiatives, such as our local BUR group, give young people opportunities to change their community through concrete action and create new opportunities for others.

For example, a young person might first come to ArtSpace for a creative activity. Then they might join a volunteer team, take part in training, propose their own initiative, receive support to implement it, and later join the Youth Council or another participation mechanism. What matters to us is that these are different elements of one system.

The Youth Development Centre is a civic initiative that can respond to young people’s needs, launch new projects, attract grant funding, experiment with new formats, build partnerships and develop volunteering. The ArtSpace Youth Centre is a permanent physical point of contact between young people and youth work. It provides a safe environment where young people can spend time, learn, work on their own ideas and find a community.

The Youth Council represents another level. Its role is to ensure young people are represented and involved in the development and implementation of youth policy. And local government creates the conditions in which all these tools can work.

A tool should respond to a specific barrier, rather than being created simply because another community has one. We analyse feedback after activities, talk to young people, work in different settlements across the community, and conduct surveys and focus groups.

For me, the key question is: “What is stopping a young person from taking the next step?”

If young people want to change something but do not know how — they need learning opportunities.

If they know how but do not have a place or a team — they need a space.

If they have an idea but lack resources — they need a system to support initiatives.

If they want to influence decisions — they need participation mechanisms and dialogue with local government.

That is why every tool should respond to a specific barrier, rather than being created simply because it exists in other communities. Each time, we tried not to stop once a new tool had been created.

We created a space — and then started developing a volunteer community around the centre and a programme of activities. We realised that opportunities should not be concentrated only in Zolotonosha — so we began developing mobile youth work in the community’s villages. We saw that one community was not enough for meaningful exchange of experience — so we became more active in interregional and professional networks. We also initiated the creation of the Cherkasy Branch of the Association of Ukrainian Youth Centers. In other words, each new tool was our response to a new need that became visible after the previous step.

For us, it was important that the youth centre become a municipal institution. We wanted youth work to become not a temporary project that exists only while there is grant funding or a group of motivated volunteers, but a part of the community’s infrastructure and a place where future community leaders can grow.

When ArtSpace became a municipal institution in 2024, it meant that the community had effectively recognised youth work as a distinct area of responsibility. In practice, this made it possible to have a permanent space, staff, budget funding and an institutional foundation for working with young people. The project run by the youth organisation became self-sustaining. For me, this was also the result of effective advocacy.

At the same time, I do not believe that municipal status automatically solves every problem. On the contrary, it marked the beginning of the next stage: ensuring the quality of youth work, building a professional team and creating meaningful opportunities for young people to participate. One of the challenges is keeping the centre’s team motivated, continuing to develop their work and finding ways to ensure decent pay.

There is no universal sequence

I would not start by creating a youth centre right away. I would start by talking to young people. You need to understand who the young people in your community are, where they live, what they need, what they want, what keeps them in the community or, on the contrary, makes them leave, what opportunities they already have and what is missing.

If a community lacks a specialist, it can reach out to a regional youth centre. The second step is to identify the people and organisations that are already willing to work with young people. Strengthen what is already working. The third is to run a few small activities and see what works. Then build your plans based on what you learn.

In a small community, it may be much more effective to first build an active volunteer community, run several initiatives, find a youth worker or coordinator and create the conditions for their work — and only then establish an institution. In another community, there may already be a strong civil society organisation that can become a partner for local government.

Somewhere else, a Youth Council might be the right first step if there are enough young people who are ready to work systematically. What matters is not how many tools have been created, but whether they actually work and give young people a real opportunity to influence their community.

Where does systematic youth policy begin?

In my view, one of the biggest challenges is seeing youth policy simply as organising events or doing something “for children”. When youth policy is reduced to a concert for Youth Day or a few sports activities, it is difficult to talk about systematic work. The second challenge is the lack of a person or team responsible for youth policy not just formally, but professionally. The third is insufficient trust in young people.

Sometimes adults are ready to organise everything for young people, but they are not ready to give them part of the responsibility — or the right to make mistakes. And finally, there is the lack of a systemic approach.

A community can establish a Youth Council, create a youth centre or adopt a youth programme. But if these elements do not interact with one another, they remain separate pieces rather than a functioning system. I also work in the local department responsible for children, youth and sports, so I see how important cross-sectoral cooperation is.

Youth policy cannot exist separately from education, social services, culture, sports, work with children and other areas. It is important that local government, young people and civil society can work together, with each side understanding its role.

Our experience shows that systematic youth policy begins when a community moves from asking: “What should we organise for young people?” to asking: “What opportunities can we create so that young people themselves can influence the development of their community?”