Latest News
News, How we work | 30 October 2026
How we work: Our approach to increasing Youth Participation in Culture
We connect young people with cultural opportunities by removing barriers and supporting activities that reflect their interests.
Learning from Young People
Dublin City Council Culture Company’s approach to cultural participation focuses on connecting people with opportunities to engage in culture by removing barriers and supporting them to explore cultural activities in ways that reflect their interests, circumstances and everyday lives.
Increasing cultural participation is not simply about providing activities. It means creating welcoming opportunities, building relationships and connecting people with cultural experiences that already exist across the city. This is particularly important for young people, who may face barriers to participation or may not see traditional cultural venues as spaces where they belong.
In our work, young people refers to those aged 13 to 21 years. We also offer activities that engage with different age groups, including early years and children of different age brackets.
In our ongoing engagement with young people, we look to understand their barriers and identify approaches that support their participation. Young people’s feedback frequently highlights challenges relating to awareness, confidence, familiarity and access, alongside a belief that particular cultural spaces or activities are not intended for everyone, least of all young people.
This listening and learning from young people feeds directly into the ongoing development of relevant activities in our work. Learning from young people helps us provide accessible entry points into cultural participation, encourage them to try something new and build connections that can support continued engagement.
Culture in local settings
We understand that bringing cultural activities into places that young people already know, such as libraries, sports centres and community settings, can reduce the reluctance to enter unfamiliar places. It helps make cultural activities a more visible and accessible part of everyday life to them and provides a way to participate that suits their interests, circumstances and levels of experience.
Our approach is particularly relevant for young people who may not typically seek out arts and cultural activities or spaces. Rather than expecting young people to come to culture, creative activities can be brought into the community settings they already use.
By locating cultural activity in their own environment it creates opportunities to interact with artists, experiment with different forms of culture, and participate without needing previous experience or travelling to an unfamiliar location. It can also serve the dual purpose of re-connecting them with the community facility differently.
Our team and cultural facilitators work to create welcoming environments where participation is encouraged rather than expected and can support young people to try out new things and develop their interests over time.
Working collaboratively to pool expertise and connections
Partnerships are central to how the Culture Company develops and delivers its programmes across Dublin. We work collaboratively with different partners in all our programmes including different sections of Dublin City Council, community groups, community development organisations, service providers, youth organisations, schools, cultural organisations, artists and other local partners.
These collaborations bring together complementary expertise, perspectives and resources. Partners contribute in different ways, from identifying local priorities, informing programme development, facilitating connections with communities and sharing their knowledge of the people and places they work with.
For youth-focused programmes, these established relationships are particularly valuable. Youth organisations, schools and community services can help identify appropriate opportunities for engagement and provide familiar points of contact for young people who might not otherwise participate in arts or cultural activities.
Our approach recognises that no single organisation can address every barrier to participation. By pooling knowledge, resources and connections, partners can support more responsive and inclusive opportunities for young people to engage with culture, creativity, sport and their local communities.
Evaluation, Impact and Learning
The Culture Company places strong emphasis on continuous learning through its evaluation of programmes. We gather qualitative and quantitative data as an integral part of all programmes we deliver. This ongoing analysis of who is participating, what they feel about their experiences and what opportunities they would like to support their ongoing participation in culture and creativity, sits alongside our data of age profile, gender and identity, geography, travel use and health.
For younger participants we have introduced facilitated feedback to capture first person testimonies and responses as part of our workshop and activity delivery alongside gathered feedback responses of young people. The evaluation of our ongoing work with young people, sits as an integral part within the evaluation framework of all our programmes.