The CYP Assembly was commissioned by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to compliment the adult assembly on the same theme.
Remit
The Assembly was tasked with the same remit as the adult assembly: providing recommendations on how the State can improve its response to the issue of biodiversity loss and informing government policy on this issue.
Commitment to Respond
Malcolm Noonan, Minister responsible for Nature, Heritage and Electoral Reform, committed to respond to the CYP Assembly.
Duration
Two weekends in October 2022, with an online pre-assembly onboarding gathering that took place in September 2022.
Governance
The Young Advisory Team comprising nine children and young people from across Ireland, aged 8-16, worked with experts in children’s participation, deliberative democracy and biodiversity from Dublin City University, University College Cork, and terre des hommes, an international organization with a focus on children’s environmental rights.
Delivery Bodies
An intergenerational team of Young Advisory Team and the independent research consortium. The Young Advisors met with the adult project team online twice a month from June 2022 to co-design the assembly process, plus a residential weekend in September 2022 to prepare the assembly.
Participant Recruitment
Standard democratic lottery approaches that rely on postal invitations or phone numbers are difficult to replicate with children and young people. Children and young people aged 7-17 from across Ireland were invited to register their interest in being an Assembly member. From the pool of 510 applicants, the final 35 Assembly members were selected, stratified according to six characteristics: gender, ethnicity, urban-rural, geography, age, disability.
Structure
Before the assembly, an onboarding session was held online to help the children and young people to get to know each other. Family Groups were established (with much-loved mascots!) with children and young people of similar ages, which enabled the Assembly members to connect with others of the same age and receive age-appropriate wellbeing support throughout the process.
The first weekend focused on learning and deliberation, enabling members to get to know each other, learn about children’s rights and deliberative democracy, biodiversity loss and its drivers. An afternoon nature walk, and scavenger hunt allowed members to explore the local woods. Members broke into theme groups to explore particular drivers: habitat loss, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation, and pollution.
Between the two weekends, the assembly members were tasked with carrying out their own independent investigation in their communities using a ‘mission pack’ created by the project team. This included interviewing members of their community and developing biodiversity maps of their local area.
In the second weekend, the members considered the learnings from the first weekend and developed their collective vision and calls for action. They were invited to imagine their vision for Ireland’s future and worked in their theme groups to create calls to action. At the end of the first day, the project team reviewed and collated the vision statements and calls to action and presented them back to the members. On the final morning, the Assembly presented its calls to action to Malcolm Noonan, Minister of State for Heritage, and Electoral Reform.
During the weekends, the Young Advisors took on different roles, including co-facilitation, capturing the assembly through film, photography, and mural illustrations, and encouraging and supporting Assembly Members.
Facilitation
The assembly was facilitated by the project team, often in collaboration with young advisors. A range of creative activities were organized to engage members.
As well as the family groups, assembly members were also placed into one of five mixed-age Theme Groups for the learning and deliberation phases. Each Theme Group focused on a key driver of biodiversity loss and was co-facilitated by adult members of the project team and Young Advisors.
EvidenceBase
The project team worked with the Young Advisory Team to identify relevant evidence and witnesses. Care was taken to translate materials into language that was accessible to the age distribution of the assembly and to develop creative activities to aid learning and dialogue.
Developing Recommendations
Ideas for the vision statement and calls for action were created on the first day of the second weekend. These were then reviewed and collated by the project team to remove overlap and presented back to the assembly members for its agreement on the last day.
Decision-making
All calls to action were included in the final report, poster, and film, grouped by seven themes. There was no vote to rank or prioritise calls to action. Instead, an emphasis was placed on ensuring all voices and ideas were heard.
Final Report
The final report includes a vision statement, six key messages and 58 calls to action. A film and poster were also made to communicate the outcomes
Communication
On 5 November 2022, six CYP Assembly members presented to the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss. A film capturing the CYP Assembly was shown. The Citizens’ Assembly endorsed the Calls for Action and agreed to incorporate them withintheir final report.
Assembly Members gave evidence to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action in the Dail.
The Assembly website presents the process, key actors, final report, and impact report. It also includes links to local, national, and international media coverage.
Public Engagement
Children and Young People aged 0-17 were invited to submit their views and ideas before the assembly began. A summary of the submissions is on the assembly website.
Official Response
The Assembly is referenced as a key influence on the Irish Government’s National Biodiversity Action Plan published in January 2024. In October 2024, the Government published its official response to the Assembly, updating their response to each Call to Action. The project team translated the Response into a version for young people and children.
Oversight of Official Response
The Assembly held a one-year reunion in October 2023 facilitated by UCC and DCU where Minister Noonan updated the children and young people about progress in response to their report.
Impact
According to the Irish government, its National Biodiversity Action Plan published in2024 addresses key recommendations from the CYP Assembly.
An Impact Report was published in January 2025 based on a series of focus group interviews with Assembly Members, Young Advisors and their parents/carers in November 2022 and October 2023, policy tracing and collation of events and media.
A follow-up project involving Assembly members and Young Advisors co-created educational resources on biodiversity with science engagement experts at UCC. The TRYBE education resources were launched in December 2023, reaching over 10,000 children and young people across Ireland through schools and youth clubs.
Evaluation
No independent research commissioned. The Impact Report captures members’ perspectives of the Assembly and some of its impact.
