Preparation was the key to success

Kristianstad municipality in southern Sweden has succeeded in translating words into action. Madelene Johansson, municipal officer responsible for democratic issues, explains how they set about working with the youth survey LUPP (Local Follow-Up of Youth Policy).

'I was working on the question of young people's influence and received a letter from the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs about the survey, and I thought it was an interesting tool,' says Madelene Johansson.

She carefully selected a number of officials who would be able to follow up questions from the survey. Together they set up a working group, comprising (among others) those responsible for school health care, two chief education officers, the manager for recreational activities, and representatives from the local labour market department, the youth council and the urban planning department.

'The working group, politicians, managers from the local administration and young people from the student council discussed the issues they thought it would be interesting to analyse before the researcher responsible for working with the survey responses got started.'

Surprising answers
Some of the results from the survey were striking. There were a number of questions for example on the school working environment. Twenty-five per cent of 14–15-year-olds in school year 8 responded that they had experienced instances of violence, racism and bullying in school.

'We had not realised that things were so bad.'

The results varied between the different schools in the municipality. At the upper-secondary level (16–19 years) the same problems were not at all apparent. The report written by the municipal authorities provided an overview of the results.

'We didn't want to name and shame individual schools, and so I sent out a summary report with separate results to each school.'

In this way, staff had the chance to discuss the results with pupils. The issue was also raised at a youth forum.

The local childcare and youth department promised to take up the matter during meetings with chief education officers. The survey responses also revealed that many young people were skipping lunch. One of the education officers asked pupils at one school why this was.

'It turned out that the issue was not the food, but rather the reception from staff in the dining room and the general environment.'

Another result that emerged was that half of students in school year 8 (14–15 years) and in the second year of upper-secondary school (17–18 years) did not know where to turn if there was something in the municipality that they wanted to change.

'Now we've employed two young people on a half-time basis who can go out to schools and speak about how to influence things. They can also provide support to student councils.'

Work on many fronts
Once the survey had been compiled and analysed, it was printed and sent to participants, politicians, schools and the administration. The working group also arranged a series of seminars on policy, influence, schools, recreation, security and health.

Madelene Johansson believes that LUPP is a useful way to identify good practice. If one school is functioning well, it is important for other schools to be able to find out about the successful working methods. She also sees the survey as a way to exert an influence:

'Some people need to hear numbers before they'll react. Turning a blind eye is then no longer an option.'


Text: Emma Welander