Children’s right to the city: the emergence of youth councils in the United States

ABSTRACT

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) spells out many rights, including the right to participate in decision-making. Within an urban context, a child’s ‘right to the city’ includes the opportunity to participate in local governance. Youth councils (YCs) provide such opportunities. Using a nationwide survey in the United States, this paper describes YC characteristics and accomplishments. Findings show that YCs generally operate with little funding and are commonly administered within parks and recreation departments or city council offices. In addition, YCs created prior to the 1990s primarily addressed youth-related problems, whereas those created after 2000, focused more on leadership skills. Significant accomplishments reported by YCs include the development of leadership skills and knowledge of government, and community-based service projects. The conclusion considers the impact of YCs on furthering the goals of the CRC and giving youth access to decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Planning
• youth council
• children’s rights
• UNCRC
• participation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Concurrently, there is growing support for the creation of a similar Convention on the Rights of Older Persons (CROP). See Van Vliet—(2011).

2. Throughout the paper, we use ‘children’ and ‘youth’ interchangeably. Although, the UNCRC refers to children as those under 18 years, most communities in this study use the term ‘youth’ to describe teenagers.

3. For example: World Summit for Children (New York, 1990), UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993), International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994), World Summit for Human Development (Copenhagen, 1995), 4th World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995), and 2nd UN Conference on Human Settlements (Istanbul, 1996).

4. The other country is South Sudan.

5. See http://www.syp.org.uk/about_syp.

6. See http://www.ycni.org/index.html.

7. This paper does not report findings from all questions.

8. The initial name, Manhasset Youth Council for the Prevention of Delinquency, further illustrates the focus on youth-related problems.

9. Prcentages do not equal 100% because many communities reported more than one accomplishment.

10. See H.Res.476 – 114th Congress (2015–2016), https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-resolution/476/text and https://campaignforchildren.org/resources/fact-sheet/childrens-bill-of-rights/.