The UK's National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) undertook a review of the literature on the impact of the voice of young people on policy and practice, and on young people themselves.

The main findings of the review were that:

• There is a growing culture of participation, with insights and ideas from the younger generation recognised as valuable in potentially shaping services and policies which affect their lives and others in the community.
• The engagement of young people in these matters can have diverse impacts on the young people involved. The range of impacts found in the reviewed literature includes those at a personal, school and wider community and societal level.
• There is a relative ‘gap’ in any routine evaluation and documentation of impact - whilst the literature review did indeed uncover documentation of impact, the evaluation of that impact was rarely done in a systematic way, nor did it always go far enough.

You can read a summary of the research (and download the full report) at http://www.nfer.ac.uk/research-areas/pims-data/summaries/the-voice-of-young-people.cfm .