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A report released
today (PDF at http://tinyurl.com/4f4j2p) has found that
popular youth participation approaches - such as youth advisory boards -
largely fail to engage with young people from diverse backgrounds. The report by the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme (NYARS), “Rewriting
the rules for youth participation - inclusion and diversity in government and
community decision-making”, was prepared by the Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre
Australia (CIRCA) in conjunction with the Inspire Foundation (www.inspire.org.au) and Dr Ariadne Vromen.
This means hundreds of thousands of young Australians -
particularly those living with a disability, from indigenous, refugee and new
and emerging communities, young people living in care and from low
socio-economic backgrounds - are unable to have a say on issues that affect
them and their communities.
The report is the first of its kind to be conducted in Australia, and
aims to provide government and community organisations with a framework for
youth participation approaches that facilitate the involvement of young people
from a range of backgrounds.
Co-author of the report, Dr Ariadne Vromen from the University of Sydney’s Department of Government
and International Relations, said, “This report is timely
with the recent announcement of the Australian Youth Forum and the
Government’s commitment to facilitate the participation of young people
and the youth sector in Government decision-making. However, young people
who contributed to this research are telling us that
participation is not just about 'having a say' - the Australian Youth
Forum needs to move beyond consultation by ensuring that issues that
matter to young people and their experiences are incorporated into policy
making.”
The
research also finds that:
- Few organisations offer targeted
approaches to ensure barriers to participation are addressed,
although they report a commitment to supporting diversity in young
people's participation in community and government decision-making.
- Government and community organisations
are yet to utilise the interactive potential of the internet to facilitate
participation.
- Community and government organisations report that the
biggest barrier to involving young people from a diverse range of
backgrounds in decision-making is resources.
Dr Vromen said, "Though the Federal
Government commitment of $8 million will go some way to supporting increased
participation of young people, we need to ensure that resources are committed
at all levels of government and across the community so that no young people
are excluded from participating."
The full report can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/4f4j2p (PDF).
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