Youth Voice Canterbury October 14th 2014 Youth Connect Report
Youth Connect Report
October 14th 2014
Overview
On the 14th October 2014 Youth Voice Canterbury
came together for their second Youth Connect
meeting after the first initial Hui in May.
Held in Kaiapoi at the Rivertown Café, we had an
amazing turn out with about 30 people coming from
all over Canterbury and from various Youth
Participation groups. Of those that signed in 6 had
not been before, and those that came were from
groups including: Waimakariri Youth Council,
WAIYouth, Christchurch Youth Council, Te Ora Hou,
Selwyn Youth Council, Hurunui Youth Programme,
Hurunui Youth Council, PYLAT, and UC Red Cross.
The night began with hot drinks and connecting,
followed by introductions and an ice breaker selfie
challenge. Tayla started with a recap of Youth Voice
Canterbury, the last Youth Connect in July, and went through the programme for
the night. The main features of the night included:
 A presentation from the Youth Friendly Places and Spaces work stream
 A website update
 Youth Mentoring workshop
 Youth Engagement workshop
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Youth Voice Canterbury October 14th 2014 Youth Connect Report
Youth Friendly Places and Spaces
The Youth Friendly Places and Spaces work stream is the newest in the Strengthening
the Youth Sector Project and are currently working on three projects:
The Youth Relevant Design Check Card:
This will be sent or given to developers, designers, and architects to inform them of
what they need to do to make any proposed places and spaces youth friendly. This
Check Card features headings such as safe, appealing, accessible, resources, and
youth friendly to inform the user of how to make a place or space great for young
people.
Youth Friendly Space Audit:
Stemming from the Youth Relevant Design
Check Card, the Audit will be used by young
people and organisations to audit public and
private places and spaces that young people
use or are potential users of.
Neat Places:
Neat Places will be an online map (and
hopefully a physical map too!) that will highlight
neat places in Canterbury as identified by
young people.
Penny Prescott and Hamish Flynn from the work
stream showed a presentation explaining their
work stream and these projects and asked for
YVC to collaborate with them and help audit
places and spaces across greater Canterbury.
This is a great opportunity for young people to
have a voice in the rebuild. A good structured
format has been set up to make it happen and make it easy for young people to
get involved. If you wish to be involved by test running the audit or want to take
some photos and do a write up on a place for the neat places map email
penny@cantyouthworks.co.nz
Website Update
Trystan Swain, a member of the YVC work stream, talked about the new Youth Voice
Canterbury website and showed all the tile options available (Pasifika, Activities,
Waimakariri, Voting, Christchurch, Environment, Hurunui, Tangata Whanua, Selwyn).
New ideas for tiles from young people included Transport, Education, Employment,
and Citizenship (to possibly replace Voting). Trystan also talked about the process for
youth guides, that there is a handbook and a Facebook support page.
The address for the website is http://www.youthvoicecanterbury.org.nz/ - check it
out and send any feedback/ideas to tayla@canyouthworks.co.nz
If you want to become a youth guide for any of the topics mentioned above email
trystan.swain002@myd.govt.nz
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Youth Voice Canterbury October 14th 2014 Youth Connect Report
Workshops
At the first YVC Hui in May 2014 the Youth Voice Canterbury network discussed the
barriers to youth voices being heard by decision-makers. At the first Youth Connect
in July 2014 these ideas were unpacked further during a ‘conversation café’ session,
including discussions around: a Youth Mentoring Scheme, making the youth voice
and being engaged cool, developing a database for youth, and youth
engagement. At the October Youth Connect we work shopped Youth Mentoring
and Youth Engagement further.
Workshop One: Youth Mentoring Scheme
Background: At the July Youth Connect the idea of developing a Youth Mentoring
Scheme was to support young people in leadership roles, or to enable them to gain
entry into areas that interest them. By having a ‘guide’ in the sector you wish to work
in you not only make hugely valuable connections but you also gain a huge amount
of insight into the actual operating structure of that organisation.
The workshop at the October Youth Connect was run by Laura Hatwell, member of
the Youth Voice Canterbury work stream and the Christchurch Youth Council
Coordinator. She talked about what a mentoring scheme is/means: “it supports
young people in leadership roles; it empowers them to gain entry into areas that
interest them.”
Wesley (a member of PYLAT and FOCYS and a
young person in the Youth Voice Canterbury
network) talked about his experience of what
being a mentor is like – about building
relationships, being a leader, talking to them how
they want to be talked to. Penny asked young
people what kind of mentors they would like. Ideas
came back from young people including: friendly,
kind, open, knowledgeable in the right/applicable area (for example a social
worker might mentor a social work student). An idea given was that you could
mentor a potential ‘future mentor’.
What followed was an activity where there were
4 stations that each presented a different
question. These were:
1) What do you want to get out of youth
mentoring?
2) How do you see the mentor being
found?
3) How would mentoring meetings work?
4) How do we even being to co-ordinate
regulating mentoring?
In groups the youth rotated around each of the stations to give their perspective
which allowed them to have a say in the development of a youth mentoring
scheme.
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Youth Voice Canterbury October 14th 2014 Youth Connect Report
The answers included:
What do you want to get out of youth
mentoring?
Experience, for mentors to pass on skills, life skills
and behaviours, knowledgeable people, SWAG,
the opportunity to further your prior knowledge,
direction, networking, ideas on what we can do,
opportunity to share and talk, inspiration, a
friend, socialising, furthering your contribution to
the community and to young people, improving
peoples outlook on youth, skills, developing a 2-way street of development,
empowerment, more involvement from youth and mentors, someone to answer
questions you may have about a field/profession, and connections to people in your
desired profession.
How do you see a mentor being found?
Local community groups, community events, through schools or towns, volunteering,
friends, industry, nationally or internationally, Facebook/social networking,
communication, parents, ask people if they would like to be mentors,
SWAGOLICIOUS PEOPLE, radio or public announcements, posters/flyers/billboards,
through council and community boards, on the radio, ask skills successful people,
through the YVC network and youth councils, and by treating this like an
organisation.
How would mentoring meetings work?
However the person being mentored wants, in
public spaces, appropriate timing, regular
contact, informal but organised, youth directed,
changes to what you are mentoring, through
skype, relaxed, be approachable, relatable and
be what the young person needs, verbal or
practical mentoring (both talking and action), in
a safe and relaxing environment, individually tailored to mentor/mentee, 2-way
conversation, comfy environment, YOLO #SWAG, in a quiet safe place, adaptable,
in a different and creative way, and definitely over food!!
How do we even begin to co-ordinate regulating mentoring?
Focus on employment (getting youth into the workforce), a facilitator for the
mentors to touch base with, check for demand, a well-known person/people, ask
young people, find a co-coordinator, feedback from person doing mentoring,
determine goals/aims, write a policy, making it more known to people, start small,
guide to mentoring, training and support, money, office area for facilitator, look at
what’s already out there, find out what is wanted from the mentor first, approach
businesses and industries for interest, find the right people who are relatable and
friendly, police checks, and determine target audience.
Several young people said they would be keen to join/help their work stream. All
agreed that Facebook is the easiest way to communicate. Young people interested
in continuing working on this wrote down there emails.
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Youth Voice Canterbury October 14th 2014 Youth Connect Report
Workshop Two: Youth Engagement
Background: At the July Youth Connect we
discussed that there is a need to consult with
young people and this can be done through
a range of approaches. It was discussed that
social media is at times too relied upon for
engagement with young people.
Organisations need to utilise the modern
technology to connect/think and don’t limit
to what has been done before. It is
important to engage with groups that are
established in communities with the purpose
of being a youth voice or are already linked in with young people to best engage.
Hannah Dunlop, Project Coordinator of Youth Recovery at Red Cross and member
of the Youth Voice Canterbury work stream ran the youth engagement workshop at
the October Youth Connect. Hannah talked
about working together to get a list of “rules of
engagement for YVC”. Lots of groups want to
recruit and consult with young people – so
what are the “hoops you want them to jump
through” to get YVC’s help/ideas/input. Here
are their ideas:

Flowchart of the process:
Contact YVC
•YVC filters the
organisation to the right
participation group
Engagement
with Young
People
•Must include food (or
reimbursement of
some type)
YVC follow
up

•to ensure the
ideas have been
taken on board
Criteria:
- Does it benefit/affect youth?
- Will YVC be able to contribute to the project?
- Will the feedback given be used?
- Is it reasonable for YVC to be involved with?
- Will the engagement be understandable and youth friendly enough to
give effective feedback.
If NO to all/most questions then we are not interested.
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Youth Voice Canterbury October 14th 2014 Youth Connect Report

Food is important. We would need to know how they want us to implement it.
Feedback is wanted to we know our time isn’t wasted! Maybe a rep is
reported to and then reports to YVC. We could have interested YVC youth as
representative for specific areas (youth guides?)

We want them to treat young people as
equals – a mate not a boss. Understand
that a young person’s time is valuable.
They need to have tolerance for
youthfulness and not be too boring. They
must be careful how they interpret youth
– don’t misrepresent.
Overall the night was a success and allowed Youth Voice Canterbury to continue
forward as a strong youth participation network celebrating youth voice and input.
The next Youth Connect will be on Thursday 11th December from 6-8pm at 301 Tuam
Street (Christchurch Community House). There will be a Christmas theme, lots of free
food, and is planned to include a workshop on the Employability Skills Framework (to
generate youth input), as well as presentations from each of the youth participation
groups within the YVC network about who they are and what they work on.
If you are interested in joining the Youth Voice Canterbury network or work stream
email tayla@cantyouthworks.co.nz
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