Arrange a meeting with all relevant project staff to discuss how to involve your target audience in the project. Discuss the benefits and risks of involving youth in the project, and exactly how they could be involved. This could be anything from offering counseling to handing out information sheets, conducting surveys and raising awareness.
Set a list of objectives for youth involvement. Look at the project's overall objectives and ensure that the youth objectives are conductive to achieving the overall objectives.
Identify your recruitment criteria. What characteristics and traits are required? If your service gives advice, you will need workers to be able to respect confidentiality, be respectful and not judge clients, for example.
Recruit workers. You could do this through traditional recruitment methods, such as job advertisements or recruitment agencies, or liaise with organizations such as schools, relevant charities and churches.
Hold an "open day," which any interested candidates should attend. This should give them information about your project and its objectives and also gives you a chance to make a shortlist of people to invite to interview.
Hold interviews. Follow your normal procedure for this, such as application forms and interviews. Keep notes throughout the interview to refer to afterward, when deciding who to employ.
Send offers of employment to those who meet the project's requirements and impressed during interviews. Include any pay details in the letter, the schedule the worker is expected to work, and any training that is being offered. Give a date in which the offer must be accepted or may be withdrawn.
Arrange training and supervision. Depending on the task the workers will be doing, this could be training in a certain area, such as pregnancy or sexual health, or guidance in talking to clients, listening and giving advice in a confidential and respectful way. Decide if the workers will need supervision and who will supervise.
Invite the workers to meetings and encourage them to offer suggestions and ideas on the project. Provide access to relevant documentation about the project and its aims, and make details of any reward schemes well known. You may find you get new ideas about how to reach your aims from your workers, who interact with your target audience frequently and will know what appeals to them.
Review the situation frequently. Collect ideas and consider how you can move closer to your target goals.