Survey for Youth Sector Organisations

Introduction

This consultation is being undertaken by the Nelson Tasman Youth Workers Collective (NTYWC) to better understand how we can strengthen support for young people across Nelson Tasman by enhancing the capability, collaboration, and effectiveness of the organisations that work alongside them.

Over recent months we’ve gathered feedback from youth sector organisations and used it to develop a draft Youth Sector Action Plan. While we have an outline of what this looks like, these ideas are still being shaped, and your feedback will influence what happens next.

This takes about 10–20 minutes, depending on how many questions you answer. Everyone who completes the survey goes in the draw to win a $150 Prezzy Card.

A shared support service

A central idea running through the plan is a shared support service for the youth sector to maintain an interactive directory, be a contact person to connect people to relevant services, and raise the visibility of youth services across the region.

A staged approach

You can read the Draft Action in Appendix 1 of the Consultation Document. It is set out in three stages, so the most immediate and practical work can begin first (including development of an interactive directory) while the more complex ideas outlined in Stage 3 can be developed over time. It is a working document, which means there’s flexibility to adapt the Plan over time, and some of the actions may move ahead more quickly than others.

We are proposing to:

•     Develop the existing directory into a more interactive, easy-to-search resource.

•     Develop two different entry points to the directory for young people and practitioners.

•     Co-design the youth entry point of the directory with young people before development begins, which is starting by asking for ideas in the Youth Consultation Document.

We are proposing to:

• Establish a designated navigator role within the shared support service, with the potential to expand it in future.

We are proposing to:

•     Increase the visibility of youth services. That would mean the shared support service would:

a)    promote the interactive directory and navigator role through channels young people already use

b)    share information about youth services and events through community networks, such as schools, alternative education, training providers, libraries, sports clubs, faith communities and community hubs.

•     Increase the visibility of the youth sector with stakeholders, funders and other decision makers. Some ways to do that could be to:

a)   use the information gathered while updating the directory and delivering (or coordinating) the navigator role to produce a regular ‘snapshot’ of the youth sector, such as what services exist, what’s changing, what are emerging issues or identified gaps.

b)   Collect and share stories that celebrate the life-changing impact of youth work in the region.

These are suggestions of what we could do to enhance visibility of youth services, but we want to understand what would work best in your community, and how to do this in a way that adds a lot of value without creating lots of extra work for already-stretched organisations.

We are proposing to:

•     Host wānanga for agencies interested in exploring multi-agency programmes and shared funding applications.

•     Explore how the practitioners’ entry point to the interactive directory could be designed to help them identify referral options or potential collaboration partners — for example, through a customised search function.

We are proposing to:

• Signal our interest in participating in Ara Taiohi’s national work on social impact reporting.
• Defer substantive work on impact reporting until Stage 3 of the Action Plan.

We are proposing to:

• Host two wānanga in Stage 1, led by people with mental health expertise, and for agencies interested in strengthening mental health support for their staff and the young people they work with. This could explore supervision support as well as training options such as clearer boundaries between mental health first aid and specialist referrals, and youth worker wellbeing more broadly.

• In Stage 3, develop a strategic approach to improving conditions for youth workers and retaining them in the sector, drawing on national work led by Ara Taiohi where possible.