Designing Pathways with Young People

Young people matter. When it comes to designing tools and services to support their career exploration, their voices, their sense of agency, and how they view themselves need to be equally valued alongside what we know about the most effective interventions and supports. But what does that look like in practice, and where do we begin?

Research for Equitable Futures has yielded countless insights on how young people think about their future lives and careers and what support they need from the adults in their lives. To translate the research into actionable insights and ideas, Equitable Futures created Designing Pathways with Young People, a toolkit loaded with actionable resources and research to help you center young people’s voices in programmatic approaches to designing or influencing career pathways. The toolkit was co-created with an advisory team of youth advocates across the education field and features design principles, resources and recommendations designed to advance your work to center the voices and perspectives of young people while supporting them in their career pathways and transitions.

The tools are organized into three categories: Action, Voices and Research. You can explore each section in-depth below. If you are already familiar with Striving to Thriving research, consider starting with the Design Principles or the Voices from the Field. If you are new to Striving to Thriving, consider beginning with the Research section, and then returning to the Action section.