A Youth Voice Network for Scotland

October 2023-2026

On behalf of the Electoral Commission, Children in Scotland is running the Youth Voice Network for Scotland. This group is working to increase the knowledge and understanding of democracy and politics amongst young people, while supporting consistency in political education.

The project is running from October 2023 until 2026, with the group meeting around four times per year. The group review programmes created by the Electoral Commission and presenting new ideas for projects they develop. The group will create resources for  the UK Parliament general election and the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.

2024 General Election

Members of the group created fantastic resources encouraging people to register to vote in the upcoming general election ahead of the registration deadline on 11:59pm on 18th June:

ED-YVN-animation-voter-reg-deadline (1)

Welcome To Your Vote Week 2025

The Youth Voice Network for Scotland helped to celebrate and raise awareness of the Welcome To Your Vote Week campaign 2025 which encourages young people across the UK to get involved and learn about voting and democracy.

The Youth Voice Network helped to set the theme for this year’s campaign – ‘Get Informed and Get Involved’. The theme encouraged young people to seek out information from reliable sources about how to vote and who you want to vote for.

Members of the Youth Voice Network helped to develop social media content, school posters and lesson plans to support Welcome To Your Vote Week.

Meeting Alison Thewliss

To mark Welcome To Your Vote week, the Youth Voice Network arranged an online meeting with former MP for Glasgow Central, Alison Thewlis.

The group asked Alison questions about what it’s like being an MP, the role of young people in elected politics and why accessible and reliable information is important to all voters in the UK.

We then created this blog reflecting on the session and Alison’s responses to our questions.

For more information on the project, please contact Parisa Shirazi on pshirazi@childreninscotland.org.uk