Development of a Youth Safety Strategy

Consultation Process

UPDATE: Below is a record of what appeared on YourSAy during the open consultation process from 18 December 2017 to 5 January 2018.

Provide your feedback on the prevention and responses to relationship, family and sexual violence in South Australia.

What is being decided?

The State Government is committed to keeping young people safe. To help us do this, we are developing a Youth Safety Strategy in partnership with young people and key stakeholders.

The Draft Youth Safety Strategy outlines the strategic policy direction developed from the feedback we have heard to date. We will use feedback from the YourSAy engagement to further inform the final strategy. Once we have finalised the strategy, we will develop an action plan for implementation.

The Draft Youth Safety Strategy provides recommendations for action under three key priority areas to better prevent and respond to relationship, family and sexual violence as it affects young people.

The recommendations are the product of three workshops with government and non-government services and were further informed by the contributions of young people through a series of engagement sessions.

The development of the Draft Youth Safety Strategy has been overseen by the Office for Women, Housing SA, SA Health, Uniting Communities and MYSA.

The objectives of the Strategy are to:

• Prevent relationship, family and sexual violence
• Raise awareness of the disproportionate vulnerability of young people to relationship, family and sexual violence (both as people experiencing and engaging in violence)
• Improve service and system responses to young people experiencing and engaging in relationship, family and sexual violence (where this is not a statutory child protection matter)

How can your input influence the decision?

You are invited to comment on the Draft Youth Safety Strategy. This includes non-government service providers including youth services, specialist homelessness services, domestic and Aboriginal family violence services, the general public and young people.

We ask that you consider the following questions:

• Is there anything missing from the Strategy that you believe is important?
• What should our priorities be for implementation of the strategy?
• What will be important for achieving these priorities?

Your feedback will be taken into consideration by the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion in finalising the Youth Safety Strategy and informing the implementation of recommendations.

Get involved

You can provide your feedback by:

• joining the online discussion
• sending your feedback to OfficeforYouth@sa.gov.au
• providing written feedback via post to:

The Department for Communities and Social Inclusion
Communities Services Division
Youth Safety Strategy
GPO Box 292
ADELAIDE SA 5001

Regular updates will be available on YourSAy and via the Office for Youth website.

Background

Hearing from the sector

Three workshops were held in 2016/17, bringing together over 90 representatives from 55 services and organisations. These included: Attorney Generals Department; SA Health; Department for Education and Childhood Development; Department of Child Protection; Department for Communities and Social Inclusion; peak bodies and advocates; the multicultural sector; the women’s sector; the youth sector including youth Specialist Homelessness Services; and Domestic and Aboriginal Family Violence Services.

Framing the workshop series was a moving presentation from a young mother, whose story reinforced the brutal reality of relationship violence and demonstrated the many deficits in our current policy and service responses for young people, especially those less than 18 years of age. Workshop participants shared and refined many ideas over the workshop series.

The resulting set of recommendations has been incorporated into the strategy diagram on page 7, which captures what workshop participants saw as the key priorities for action necessary to improve the safety of young people both now and into the future.

Hearing from young people

Sector workshop participants emphasised the importance of capturing young people’s views and recommendations for a Youth Safety Strategy. Many workshop participants also contributed to developing the youth engagement process. Youth engagement facilitators came from eleven organisations and services with established advisory groups or existing supportive relationships with participating young people.

Facilitators reported that young people were passionate about the importance of the subject and pleased to have an opportunity to contribute ideas. Many said they would have liked more time for discussion and wanted more young people to be involved. The views of young people were compiled in a Youth Engagement report, and their recommendations are reflected in our strategy diagram on page 7.

100 young people participated in the engagement sessions representing the following groups of young people:

• Youth leaders (advisory groups)
• Young women with children
• Those with lived experience
• Homeless or previously homeless young people
• Aboriginal young people
• LGBTIQ young people
• Those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
• Students in alternative learning programs
• High school students
• Tertiary students