Our Voice has been developed to address the needs identified by the SA Youth Action Plan and a project undertaken by Wudinna and Streaky Bay District Councils as part of a partnership with the SA Office of the Commissioner for Young People which has identified a gap in authentic youth-led input in local planning.

Our Voice aims to build up build the capacity of the councils and communities to include youth participation in health and emergency response planning.

The project will take place in term 1 2021 and the April 2021 school holidays and will engage young people in the region through a range of activities to improve social connection and increase resilience. It aims to increase shared skills and communication between local youth and decision-makers with young in order co-design and create a local recovery response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the project, young people will be given skills to communicate their priorities to decision-makers on an ongoing basis, including input into relevant health and emergency plans

Youth-led recommendations for ongoing suitable Covid-19 responses will be presented to Ceduna, Wudinna and Streaky Bay District Councils and other local decision-makers at the completion of the project.

Project Achievements

The ‘Our Voice’ project was successfully delivered through a collaboration between the councils of Ceduna, Wudinna and Save the Children Australia.

The project supported young people to:

• learn skills in teamwork
• identify things that are important to them
• increase their understanding of universal children’s rights
• communicate their ideas with impact.

Our Voice was offered in different formats across the region and involved thirty-one young people from diverse backgrounds, aged between 10 and 15 years old as lead participants in total and one young person as staff.

In Wudinna, the year 8 class at Wudinna Area School undertook in-classroom workshops throughout the second half of term 2.

In Ceduna, participants engaging in workshops held at the Ceduna Youth Hub after school in term 2 and during the July school holidays.

The workshops covered the four phases of the project and helped young people refine their ideas and create a sub-project that they led to express these ideas and possible solutions. The project has generated renewed interest by local decision-makers and service providers in the region to better understand and achieve youth participation.

The project increased the confidence and skills of young people in communicating their ideas to each other and other audiences. Workshops provided hands-on skill-building opportunities in the use of various media tools, such as videography, drone photography and artwork design. The project aided the creation of high-quality youth-led communication material designed for decision-makers and forms a foundation for further capacity building opportunities for stakeholders in youth participation and planning.

Our Voice was designed by Save the Children (SCA) to promote the participation of children and young people in communities. The importance of participation for children and young people is outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (the ‘Convention’).

The project was successful in creating safe spaces for young people to provide ideas about what would support children and young people in their community and completing all young people focused activities in Ceduna and Wudinna. Twelve workshop sessions were delivered across the two regions. Activities delivered were tailored to the communities participating.

Our Voice facilitating staff worked closely with site partners, the year 8 teacher at Wudinna Area School, the Ceduna Youth Hub and the Remote School Attendance Strategy team.

The project’s four phases assisted participants to connect with one another, share their experiences, choose a shared goal for their sub-project, identify issues and find solutions.

Young people in Wudinna chose to use video to convey their experience and message and, in the process, developed and practised working together and learning new skills in media and technology. Young People led all associated activities including writing, set designing and acting a role play scenario.

Ceduna participants chose to present their ideas through a creative art proposal to improve their feeling of safety and inclusion in Ceduna’s public spaces. Young people engaged in design activities as well as being trained in the use of a drone that will assist future documentation of youth led activities and perspectives. Young people will present their proposal, through a presentation to be held at the Ceduna Youth Hub as part of Children's Week 2021 events.

Project Outcomes

The Project was successful in engaging young people in two of the three designated LGA areas. In these sites, continued engagement was demonstrated through repeat attendance and positive interactions and involvement of young people in group activities and tasks.

Outside of more structured Our Voice workshops, SCA facilitators spent time volunteering at the Ceduna Youth Hub, Youth focussed NAIDOC week events and at a memorial event for a deceased young person.

The investment of time to build rapport between facilitators and young people was important for participants in Ceduna, the majority of whom identified as Aboriginal. Whilst the lead facilitator was not from the region, other SCA staff, including those from the same Aboriginal cultural groups of young people in Ceduna, have contributed to the success of the project by encouraging young people to express their views in a way that makes sense from a cultural and broader community perspective.

In Wudinna, SCA was conscious of ensuring that existing classroom dynamics or student identities did not inhibit any young persons’ experience or level of participation. In response, SCA incorporated a variety of means to ensure that all participants engaged with the content and had a role to play in influencing decisions and the creation of communication material. In both settings, the project was able to support young people to increasingly lead their chosen sub-projects. The safety created through relationship building and child-led principles created an inclusive place for discussions that covered wellbeing, learning difficulties, mental health challenges, cultural identity, safety, and community participation.

Our Voice was successful in creating 2-way learning opportunities between adults and young people. SCA observed that whilst participants in Ceduna had a high degree of confidence to input their ideas into the Youth Hub setting, they were far less familiar and confident in the concept of exercising their rights to express their views in the broader LGA context.

In Wudinna young people knew of previous processes such as the now inactive Youth Advisory Council but had limited experience in forwarding their ideas directly to the council. In both sites and through age-appropriate activities, young people gained skills in understanding the inherent rights of children and skills in assessment, analytics, and communication The project was successful in increasing the confidence of young people to input their ideas to local government planning which relates to emergency and health planning.

Whilst the project was not delivered in full in Streaky Bay, the discussions SCA had with young people and council staff indicated that young people had a strong degree of existing confidence through more frequent and established mechanisms used by Streaky Bay District Council to have the input of young people.

Regional evaluation enabled program facilitators to make immediate adaptations and improvements to project delivery content. The evaluation focused on core principles of child participation, ensuring that the process of involving young people was considered equally important as the output of content generated. The facilitator's discussed learning styles, interests, strengths and challenges observed in each participant and tailored activities to maximum benefit to each young person involved.

Ongoing Learning and Collaborations

Our Voice has created opportunities within the SCA Ceduna team as staff involved in facilitating workshops have shared insights and material generated through workshops. There has also been increased collaboration within SCA between other project sites in Victoria and NSW that have delivered Our Voice. Shared staff training, resources and community of practice mechanisms have been established and continue to be utilised whilst Our Voice project delivery continues. SCA have included Our Voice as a key project component in our emergency response suite of services tailored to children and young people. The suite encompasses emergency planning preparation, crisis response and recovery activities

Both the Far West Coast Partnerships and Ceduna Our Town initiatives have shown interest in learning more about the project and child participation principles and SCA will continue to resources developed by young people and training opportunities around child participation principles.

The Far West Coast Partnership is an organisation is dedicated to empowering Far West Coast Indigenous people by addressing intergenerational social and economic disadvantage, enabling the cultural recognition and determination of the Aboriginal Communities of the Far West Region: Ceduna, Koonibba, Scotdesco, Yalata and Oak Valley (Maralinga).

Our Town is a ten-year, place-based mental health initiative supporting community-determined responses to mental health and wellbeing. The Our Town initiative aims to build on the capacity of people living in rural and regional South Australian towns to support each other in the face of mental health and wellbeing challenges. The initiative supports towns and regions to define what’s right in and for their community so that they can reclaim the mental wellbeing of their community.

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.

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