• The Lava Javas youth café is run by young people for young people.
• The young people from the committee were involved from the very start and helped to determine the topic and questions.
• The involvement of the committee was sustained throughout, from running the broader consultation with 55 young people to using the findings of the consultation to design the Halloween event.
• The young people on the committee, and those who attended the consultation, were interested in the issue because it directly affected them. They were all able to identify how they wanted the event to be run.
• The process was very inclusive.
• The members of the café felt safe to give their opinions because they were in a comfortable and familiar environment.
• Each committee member ensured everyone wrote their opinions on the walls. They supported the young people if they needed help with spelling, and they gave them lots of space and time to write.

• On 25 October 2019, the committee held a consultation with 55 young café users, using an open-space approach to capture the views of the constant flow of young people coming in and out throughout the evening.
• Two flipchart sheets were hung on the wall with the consultation questions:
• What Halloween activities would you like to see at the Lava Javas Halloween party?
• In your opinion, what is the best time of the day to hold the Halloween party?
• Young people were invited to write their ideas on Post-its throughout the night, this anonymised the ideas.
• The questions allowed young people to write whatever ideas they wished.
• Near the end of the evening, the committee members categorised the Post-its and left the categories on the wall so that the café members could see everyone’s ideas clearly. This ensured that each young person in the café knew their opinions had influenced the categories.
• An evaluation form, the ‘my opinion’ evaluation method, was used in order to gauge how the young people found the open-space Halloween consultation.

• The decision-makers for this event were the youth worker and the youth committee.
• The young people giving their views on the Halloween event knew who wanted their views and why they wanted them.
• The decision-makers promised to take every young person’s opinions and ideas seriously.
• Following the broader consultation with the 55 young people, the youth committee members discussed the feasibility of the suggestions provided at the consultation in the Lava Javas youth café.
• Each category was looked at and the committee members made a plan to ensure that the Halloween event included as many ideas and opinions as possible. They decided that the ideas that could not be included in the Halloween event would be used for future events or activities in Lava Javas.
• All young café users were informed about the time of the event and the activities to be included before Halloween.

• When the young people were asked to give their opinions, they were informed that the event would be held in Lava Javas youth café, which allowed them to make suggestions that might work in the space.
• The evaluation, which was filled out at the end of the consultation, captured how the young people felt about being involved and listened to.
• The views of the young people were written up the night the consultation took place.
• All their ideas were given proper consideration.
• An event timetable was written up that listed all the activities. This ensured that the young people knew exactly what happened in response to their ideas from the consultation.
• The committee members explained to the young people who were consulted why some of their ideas were not included in the event and what would happen to thoseideas. Several of these ideas were used at events in the weeks after Halloween (e.g. a Christmas movie night, decoration of Christmas cupcakes and decoration of Valentine’s Day cupcakes).

Below are the findings from the consultation. The text highlighted in yellow are the activities that the youth committee decided would be feasible. The event was from 3pm to 7pm, the time chosen by the majority of those consulted.