Fair Work Australia (FWA) yesterday announced its decision on the Federal Equal Remuneration Case, acknowledging that pay rates in the community sector have for too long undervalued workers and been based on gender.
YANQ Director, Siyavash Doostkhah, welcomed FWA's decision today, saying, “It's a decision that has the possibility to create a stronger community sector and support front-line workers in assisting some of the most disadvantaged people in our society, including at risk youth”.
“It can also assist us in attracting the next generation of workers to the sector, and to truly value the amazing work that community workers do”.
However, Mr Doostkhah also warned that these advances may be limited if the decision is not backed by adequate funding from Federal and State Governments.
National Youth Week is happening April 13-22 this year!
Its a great opportunity to celebrate and showcase young people's contribution to Brisbane. Its also an opportunity to take advantage of media interest to highlight your service, engage young people in local discussions about issues effecting them, and to offer activities with young people to develop their skills, networks and sense of identity.
This exciting new resource aims to support youth organisations in increasing participation, consultation and inclusion of young people with a disability into their service.
Outlines current thinking and practices on youth participation and consultation.
A guide for youth service organisations to effectively, professionally and safely engage young people with a disability in the work and operations of community organisations.
Covers critical areas of consideration in the development and implementation of youth participation and consultation activities, with practical frameworks and tools to inform practice.
This brief, unofficial guide to Job Service Australia providers has been produced by Byron Mulligan for use by Youth Services. It gives a wonderfully clear and concise look at how to support young people in accessing these services and provides links to the relevant sites and forms.
As the Queensland peak body for youth affairs, YANQ produces a fortnightly email update relevant to youth organisations and youth workers across the state. Get on board and sign up today, share your upcoming events and new resources, and help the sector stay connected! View our first January update by clicking here.
One year on from the floods that wrecked havoc to many Queenslanders' lives, there are some great resources available to help cope with the mental health impacts of the aftermath of natural disasters. Headspace has produced a series of great video resources for young people, parents and youth workers to help with recovery and resiliance building. They also have text based resources on their website.
YANQ and Australia's poetry slam champion, Luka Lesson, have teamed up in 2012 to tackle the ongoing outrage of 17 year olds in adult prisons. Luka has been creating a spoken word piece, 17, to ignite the campaign this year, and has been blogging about the process so far at http://lukalesson.com/. We're super excited about its release during the Brisbane leg of the “Please Resist Me” Poetry Slam Tour on Sunday February 26, 2012, and hope you can come along!
Locking up 17 year olds in prison violates the United Nations bill, ratified by the Australian Government, that states eighteen should be the legal age of adult imprisonment. Queensland’s own Anti-descrimination Commissioner has condemned the current state of affairs, as has the Children’s Commissioner and The Queensland Law Society. How can we be doing this to our children?
Find out more about the YANQ's Stop Locking Up Children in Queensland's Adult Prisons campaign here, or get active and download our campaign resource kit! You can also call YANQ to see how your organisation can get involved by calling 07 3844 7713.
Is ADHD a real disorder, or a 'big lie'? Are we tricking ourselves into thinking that the way kids act in response to our society can be diagnosed as a disorder? In 2011, YANQ gathered some of the key researchers in Brisbane to put these ideas to debate.
Opinions varied amongst the researchers and academics. Some considered that ‘ADHD’ is a real but rare condition that is mis-diagnosed and over-medicated; others considered ‘ADHD’ to be an outright fraud. However, all agreed that unnecessarily giving powerful psychotropic drugs to children is a violation of their rights and often results in serious short and long term harm.
Martin Whitely MLA is a politician and author. He has written on: the rise and fall of ADHD child prescribing in WA; the long term WA data about the safety and efficacy of stimulants and; the Draft National Guidelines for the treatment of ADHD.
