Finding effective and just solutions to complex social issues entails proper citizen participation. Youth have traditionally been underrepresented in citizen participation efforts, while participation at an early stage in life can have long-term effects on active participation in adult life. Citizen service organizations have an important role to play in improving youth participation, to support their current ageing volunteer force as well as to secure inclusive and thriving societies. This paper examines the operationalizing of youth participation in the creation and execution of a large-scale citizen service program in The Netherlands. It shows that numerous definitions, models, frameworks, and examples of diverse forms of participation exist in literature and practice, contributing to potential confusion in discourse. Different models of youth participation place different emphases, yet six common elements can be abstracted: (1) phases of the participation, (2) the representativeness of the participants, (3) the participant group’s volume, (4) the diversity of viewpoints in the participation, (5) the intensity of the participation; and (6) the influence of the participants in the decision-making process. Our research shows that most emphasis is placed on phases of participation and influence of the participants. Our interviews brough forth three conditions or critical success factors of youth participation: agenda-setting and organization, a sense of equality, and (co-)decision-making. We use the concept of means-end decoupling to explain why some participation efforts (means) might be decoupled from the perception of participation by participants and/or youth empowerment (ends) if the three necessary conditions are not facilitated.
