The City of Onkaparinga’s recovery project recognises and values the role young people play as catalysts of an inclusive and resilient community. The Youth-Led resilience project aims to connect and upskill young people in the City of Onkaparinga to address the impacts of COVID -19.

The program will be delivered through the following key elements:

• Three 8-12 week incubator programs for young people aged 15-25 years who are newly unemployed, underemployed, self-employed, or seeking employment in creative industries such as artists, musicians, designers, hospitality and retail.
• A digital storytelling program and a year of curated youth voice stories. Building capacity, activating and mobilising young people to create, capture and frame positive conversations, experiences, insights around COVID-19 response and recovery from young people’s perspective.
• Design and delivery of a work experience ready businesses program, working in partnership with our ON Business Program and local businesses to develop a tool kit to upskill and establish businesses that are ready to welcome young people for work experience opportunities.

The project took place in July 2021 and is linked closely with the following strategic documents:

• South Australian Youth Action Plan
• Better Together SA Youth Engagement Guide
• Youth and COVID-19: Response, recovery and resilience, OECD

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Project Achievements

To deliver this project Onkaparinga established a steering group comprising key stakeholders and young people and employed a young person in their early career to steer the project. Through the employment process, Onkaparinga provided coaching and feedback to 12 candidates on their application process.

Onkaparinga has delivered two incubator programs, first for young creatives interested in employment and/or entrepreneurial pathways, and second for young people interested in digital storytelling. They have also delivered a series of complimentary workshops including photography, financial literacy and business Kickstarter.

Mentoring sessions were delivered to provide ongoing support to young people in the incubator programs. An event was organised to celebrate the achievements of young people which was officiated by the Mayor and attended by participants, their families and key stakeholders.

Grant funding was provided to three start-ups arising from the incubator programs, and Onkaparinga will continue to support the establishment of their ventures.

The project also ran an engagement initiative and conducted focus groups with a range of stakeholders including employers, recruitment agencies, schools and young people with a view to understanding and addressing barriers young people face when seeking work experience opportunities.

An additional outcome of working with the steering group has been establishing a new site for our Onkaparinga Youth Enterprise Hub which has provided a venue for our workshop series and which will also provide ongoing opportunities for engagement with graduates of our incubator programs especially through the co-working space and mentorship.

Project Outcomes

This project:

• Delivered 10 programs including focus groups and additional workshops
• Delivered 17 sessions; a total of 58 hours; plus 10 additional hours of mentoring.

Involved a total of 168 people including 72 young people aged 12–24.
48 young people were new to Onkaparinga, meaning they haven’t engaged with their services previously.  

The project was:

• On budget
• On-time. (Onkaparinga sought and renegotiated project completion and reporting deadline mainly due to the impact of Covid-19)
• 70% of repored influence in decision making
• 80% increase skills and knowledge  
• 70% increase well-being
• 70 % Increase better connections.

3 youth owned and led start-ups launched through our Incubator program.

A sample of young people participating in in-depth interviews say they have increased confidence; gained new networks; enhanced their ability to respond and support their peers experiencing difficult times; increased their understanding of available opportunities and pathways including career and entrepreneurial pathways.

These outcomes are short term to long term.

Long term because we have provided skills development, tools, resources, pathways and worked collaboratively with other stakeholders to ensure outcomes will be sustained beyond the life of the project. For instance, Onkaparinga purchased and provided recording microphones to most of the participants in our Digital Storytelling program to ensure young people have the skills and tools to continue telling their stories.

Onkaparinga has also provided start-up capital, ongoing mentorship for up to 3 months after the Incub8 program and free access to our co-working space to ensure outcomes are sustained beyond the life of the program.

Onkaparinga used a range of methods to evaluate this project including Results Based Accountability, photographic and videography evidence, participant feedback, anecdotal evidence and in-depth interviews with a sample of participants.

Outcomes Survey Results

Outcome 1: Improve individual/community social and emotional wellbeing

The project has through its incubator program:

• Built and strengthened pathways that lead to new skill development and training opportunities.
• Explored opportunities to improve volunteering and enable young people to make positive contributions to their local areas.
  Provided training opportunities to help young people become more resilient and learn how to support each in tough times.
  Responded to the medium to long-term impacts of COVID-19  
  Contributed to social wellbeing of young people to prevent impacts of covid-19 from exacerbating

Outcome 2: Improve individual/community economic wellbeing and resilience

The project has:

• Built and strengthened pathways that lead to new skill development, training or employment opportunities
• Responded to the medium to long term economic impacts of COVID-19
• Provided opportunities for young people to be job-ready by gaining transferable skills and work experience to prevent impacts of covid-19 from worsening.

Outcome 3: Reduce social isolation and increase the participation of priority groups in the local community

The project has:

• Reduced social isolation and enhance social connection for young people who are ‘newly’ vulnerable or at risk of being vulnerable due to COVID-19.
• Strengthened protective factors through participation in collaborative activities and training opportunities to build resilience, soft skills and self-care.
• Facilitated participation of young people in decisions that affect them.

Outcome 4 - Improve digital inclusion as a tool to create social inclusion by facilitating digital access, digital literacy and digital enablement  

The project has:

• Designed creative solutions that improve digital accessibility and affordability for young people including those who are vulnerable to isolation.
• implemented activities that enhance digital literacy of target group/s including e-safety.
• Facilitated access to digital platforms that have become the ‘new norm’ in COVID-19 response and recovery for target group/s.
• Provided online activities to provide youth with access to training and educational opportunities.

Ongoing Learnings and Collaborations

Learning from this project will inform the design and implementation and incubator program Onkaparinga plan to run in the coming months as their flagship program.  

Learnings from our Work Experience Engagement project will inform the development and implementation of a future job ready early intervention program in consultation and collaboration with key stakeholders.  

Onkaparinga will take into account learnings from the Digital Storytelling program in designing future opportunities around digital storytelling to ensure young people have a voice and have the skills, tools and avenues to tell their stories from their perspective

Onkaparinga will continue to work with its Youth Covid Recovery Project Steering Group and explore how their role might evolve especially as part of an advisory to our Onkaparinga Youth Enterprise Hub.

The project has led to ongoing collaboration and resource sharing with internal stakeholders especially our Economic Development Team and in co-sharing our newly opened Onkaparinga Youth Enterprise Hub (OYEH) space.  They have helped promote our programs through their monthly newsletter, provided resources to be used by program participants and provided relevant contacts including program facilitators from their OnBusiness Partner Program (ON). We are also working with ON to have youth-owned and led start-ups listed on their online business directory.  

Onkaparinga has also been working collaboratively with and sharing knowledge and resources across the Youth Team especially with our Music, Arts and Recreation Officers.

This project has received funding from the Department of Human Services Youth-led COVID-19 Recovery Grants and administered by the Local Government Association of South Australia.

Project images