Youth Engagement Assessment Tool
For Planners and Engagement Practitioners
Strengthen your organization’s connections with youth
Evaluate, Reflect, and Engage
Are you a planner or engagement practitioner looking to improve how your organization connects with youth?
This Youth Engagement Assessment Tool is designed to help teams reflect on current practices, identify gaps, and plan concrete next steps to ensure youth-friendliness becomes a collective, intentional part of your process.
Adaptable and Flexible
Our tool offers 3 suggested pathways based on your team’s capacity and can be done in as quickly as 45 minutes. The assessment can also be completed before, during, or after the engagement.
Grounded in Research and Experience
Our tool is developed by researchers from Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto, with guidance and input from experienced planning and engagement professionals.
Step-By-Step Guidance
Our tool includes structured discussions, guided reflections, and an easy-to-use scoring system. With our tool, your team can clarify goals, recognize strengths, and collaboratively build more inclusive practices.
We want to help you understand where you are currently in engaging youth, and get you to where you want to be.
Acknowledgements
The Youth Engagement Assessment Tool was developed for Urban Minds by a team of six graduate students at Toronto Metropolitan University: Zoha Ahsan, Julia Dyck, Emery Firth-Masi, Julia Menezes, Aveth Ravindran, and Andy Zhou. The team was supported by Faculty Supervisor Dr. Magdalena Ugarte and project mentors Eugenia Ochoa, Tracy Manolakakis, Sivahami Vijenthira, Daniel Fusca, and Lillian D’Souza.
Additional supporting documentation was developed in collaboration with four undergraduate students at the School of Cities, University of Toronto: Joanna Benjamin, Sarah Cadiente, Ashley Isaacs, and Muzna Mian. Through the Multidisciplinary Urban Capstone project these students developed the Youth-Friendliness Audit Tool, an evaluation framework for the youth engagement practices of municipal staff and urban planning practitioners. The team was supported by Dr. David Roberts and Shivangi Chauhan.
