Development of the Christchurch Youth Action Plan
On July 20th 2017, the Christchurch Youth Action Plan: Foundation Document was launched and the Christchurch City Council announced a $50,000 Youth Initiatives Fund. However, there was a long process with consulting young people that took place before this launch could happen.
After the first hui, the draft Youth Action Plan was released for comments and feedback in March 2017. Further consultation began for the next two months, with two young people leading the initiative.
With the help from experienced professionals from the youth sector, key groups from the community were highlighted as important to consult with, as well as ensuring there would be multiple occassions for any young person to be consulted with. Consultation team leaders contacted various youth participation groups, community groups, and schools inviting groups to participate in shaping the final document. Various options of consultation provided for each of the groups to allow the best fit for that group, workshops could be varied depending on how much time the groups had and how many participants. All groups were also offered to be sent resources to facilitate their own workshop if they felt this was more suitable.
From this initial invitation, 14 groups agreed to participate in consultation; The Cube, Hagley High School, Ara, Te Ora Hou, Pacific Youth Parliament, YMCA, Christchurch Girls High School, The Sustainable Transport Youth Reference Group, Catholic Cathedral College, The Spreydon- Cashmere Youth Community Board, Q-Topia, Cashmere High School, Christchurch Youth Council and the Youth Unit at Christchurch Mens Prison. There were also three open workshops provided to any young person interested and were held at libraries throughout Christchurch. These were advertised on various social media pages.
Many of the priorities young people highlighted throughout the consultation did not sit solely under the Christchurch City Council's jurisdiction and therefore the consultation team started to reach out to other key stakeholders such as Environment Canterbury and The Canterbury District Health Board. The purpose behind this was to start making relationships and inviting these groups to be involved with the Youth Action Plan Initiative. Christchurch Youth Council was approached to become guardians of the Christchurch Youth Action Plan. The executive committee for the Christchurch Youth Council voted for taking over guardianship.
Throughout the consultation period data was collected in raw form, a team worked to track and code this data, and then group the data into themes and sub-themes. This method will allow young people in the future to track the points they raised and ensure that they ended up in the final document. The draft of the foundation document was sent back to the young people involved for suggestions, feedback and to check that their voices had been captured correctly. Work was also done with stakeholders to ensure that the foundation document would be easy to follow and useful for all stakeholders, both the young people and decision makers alike.
On July 20th 2017, the Christchurch Youth Action Plan: Foundation Document was launched - an initiative to turn young people's ideas into actions, empower young people to be active citizens, and create an inclusive and vibrant christchurch for young people. Christchurch Youth Council then worked on deciding the future work of the initiative and how to make the actions a reality. At the launch event, the Hon. Lianne Dalziel (Mayor of Christchurch) announced a $50,000 Youth Initiatives Fund to support the implementation of the Christchurch Youth Action Plan.
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