Whether you are reaching out through social media, email, print publications (e.g., newsletters, local newspapers and posters) or video, your invitation to young people in your community to complete the survey needs to be well targeted, compelling and clear. Invitations should focus on the reason for the survey and benefits to the recipient or to people and causes the recipient cares about. Experience with the Community Child and Youth Well-being Survey finds that young people’s motivations most often are to benefit their peers and influence change. Secondarily, incentives can be motivating, particularly the chance to earn volunteer hours, win a prize or both. As with many survey decisions, young people are best placed to guide decisions on what motivating messages and incentives to prioritize. The views of diverse young people will help reach groups for whom specific messages, incentives, disincentives or barriers need to be considered.

Clear invitations also provide all the information necessary to easily take the next step. In this case, that most likely means direct access to the survey. Too many steps to get to the survey or too much text and imagery masking the information will be deterrents. If the survey will close on a certain date, mention that, too – especially in messages delivered closer to the end date. Young people should also be able to easily share the invitation with peers.

In some cases, the invitation might be sent to the parents or key adult influencers in a child’s life, such as a message to parents/guardians from schools or supporting organizations. The tone and content of these messages may be somewhat different than those targeted to young people directly, but they should be consistent, with the goal of having the recipient act as a positive influencer in the child’s decision to participate and/or provide consent for that participation. However, the young person must always make the decision to participate.

The media you choose to deliver these messages, particularly to youth, should be guided by young people and carefully considered to be cost-efficient. Consider where young people ages 9 to 18 are in your community. Are they in school, in certain clubs and programs, or at certain spaces and facilities? Do they use certain social media platforms? Where are smaller groups of young people that may be hard to reach, such as those out of school or who speak different languages?

See Appendix for invitations that other communities have used.