European Youth Information Quality Label

‘Every child has the right to reliable information from a variety of sources, and governments should encourage the media to provide information that children can understand.’ Article 17, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

At Young Scot, we take our role in providing quality-assured, reliable youth information seriously. That is why we are proud to have been awarded the European Youth Information Quality Label which recognises the processes we have in place to create information for young people. The European Youth Information Quality Label provides a visual sign with that information is verified, true and unbiased and we are proud to add the label to our website.

Today, we all have access to more news sources and different ways to access the media than ever before. Whether it’s news alerts to our smartphones, posts on Facebook, or videos on TikTok – we’re bombarded with information every single day. Over the last few years, we’ve also seen a rise of mis- and dis- information – and the pandemic has brought this issue to the fore. In this context, it is vital that young people have access to trusted, verified and unbiased information that enables them to make informed decisions.

The European Youth Information Quality Label builds on our work that embeds the principles of the European Youth Information Charter into our day-to-day work at Young Scot. What you might see on social media or our website as a single post or piece of information, has been through a process that ensures we’re providing accurate, reliable and verified information to young people. That means, behind every piece of content we create is a process that involves several members of staff, recording of verified sources and a risk assessment.

We’re excited that being awarded the European Youth Information Quality Label will enable us to award the label to other organisations that provide youth information services across Scotland – helping to show young people that the information they are consuming is trusted, verified and unbiased. Please watch this space as we will share information in relation to this in the coming months.

We also want to say a big thank you to everyone that supported our application, including the young people on our Digital Information Review panel who provided us with invaluable feedback, as well as representatives from the Scottish Government, sportscotland, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and Renfrewshire Council.

If you want to find out more about the work we do through our information service or would like to partner on an information campaign, please get in touch with Reid Aiton, our Director (External Relations & Be Informed Services).