Using Social Network Sites for participation: young people from Devon tell us how

• How can Social Network Sites support young people's participation in decision making?
• What should youth services seeking to engage young people online be thinking about?
• What are the right 'norms', 'rules' and 'procedures' for keeping young people and staff safe when exploring online consultation and participation?

As part of our research down in Devon we've been exploring question like this - and at the end of July we had the chance to talk with young people at the Kongomana festival to find out their views on how youth services and local authorities can use Social Network Sites like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook to offer them a chance to influence decisions.

You can read all about what young people told us in the consultation report, which also includes details of how young people perceive sites like Bebo.

Download the consultation report (PDF, 4.7Mb)

To read more about some of the methods we used, check out this blog post.

And for more background information on using Social Network Sites in youth participation, please check out this paper.