You are almost at the finishing line. Nevertheless, there is still work involved in preparing and transforming the project results into an accessible output – which should then be communicated to the decision-makers and beyond. And don’t forget the evaluation!

Communicate the results in an easily accessible, transparent and appealing way

No matter the form it is very important that the results are presented in a transparent way that also appeals to the recipients. As there are several recipients of the results, targeted efforts are also highly relevant here. You can ask the different groups of recipients how they would prefer to receive the results. The decision-makers might want it one way, the media a second, and young people a third.

Besides presenting the actual results in the form of ideas, recommendations or others, it is also important that you clarify the significance and relevance of your project results. You should make it clear to everyone that there is real quality output to be gained from involving young people in decision-making processes. To put it another way, you should use your results to show how well youth participation works.

8 helpful tips you keep in mind during your participation phase

1. Present your results to decision-makers face-to-face
   You should be well-prepared for these meetings. The decision-makers might ask critical questions like the number of participants, representativeness, the legitimacy of the results, the neutrality of the information material, and so on.
   
   
2. Communicate your results beyond the decision-making level  
   Follow-up with the young participants is essential. Firstly, you should send the results to them. Secondly, you should keep them updated on the initiatives that are being realised to make their input count, and what impact it has made so far. 
   
   
3. Assess the impact of your project
   An impact assessment is always useful. If the impact is low you will learn what to do differently in your next project. If the impact is high you can use it when convincing the decision-makers to endorse your next youth eParticipation project.
   
4. Evaluate and sustain the project from the beginning to the end 
   Here the evaluation sheets from each of the four phases will be of great use. All in all, use this opportunity to learn from what went well and what did not and reflect on suggested solutions to this.
   
5. Initiate your next youth eParticipation project
   In general, citizens – young and old alike – are very politically engaged after having taken part in participatory processes. Therefore, our advice to you is to initiate your next project as soon as possible, so you can sustain this energy. It is this kind of energy that contributes to keeping our democracy alive!