Transforming youth participation? Examining co-production in a school based time bank

Abstract

ABSTRACT Co-production has attracted increasing interest from public and voluntary sectors as an approach that repositions service users as central to the design and delivery of public services. In relation to children and young people, co-production’s ideological proponents argue that it moves beyond traditional forms of participation, such as consultation, and offers more ‘transformative’ forms of engagement with services. However, whilst there is a growing body of literature and empirical enquiry into young people’s participation in decision making there has been little research into young people’s involvement in the co-production of services. Drawing on a case study employing both ethnographic methods and participatory approaches with young people, this article reports on the attempts to develop co-productive practices within a school-based time bank. The paper highlights major challenges in its development, these included young people’s motivations for involvement, their willingness to co-produce and adults’ adaptability to these practices. The article makes an important contribution to the still limited academic debates on the co-production of youth services and questions whether the type of engagement found in the time bank is really more ‘transformative’ than traditional forms of youth participation in the schooling system and related agencies of youth inclusion.