Over the past few months, YMCAs in the Dublin and Cork areas have been trying to listen to the views of young people through focus groups and regional forums.

This arises from a decision by the YMCA movement to prioritise developing ways of ensuring that young people are involved in the decision making processes of the organisation.

With many YMCAs currently involved in developing new three year strategic plans, it was felt that this provided a good opportunity to create spaces where young people could express their hopes and fears for the future and how they felt about the YMCA as users as well as providing them with space to shape the organisation’s priorities over the coming years.