Youth

Youth lying in coloured power colour run

Youth projects and programs

What does youth development do?

Working in partnership with young people, various agencies and levels of Government to develop programs and opportunities Council's Youth Development Officer can assist to:

  • Improve the quality of life of young people in our region
  • Celebrate the diversity of young people
  • Increase the positive perception of young people by highlighting young people as valuable assets to the future of the community
  • Assist Council in decision making processes involving young people
  • Be a point of contact for young people so as to connect them to various types of support they may need whether it be health, legal, housing or just how to get something happening in the community.
  • Work with young people on their ideas and assist in the development of positive partnerships for young people.
  • Actively consulting and involve young people in the development, initiating and reviewing of youth plans for the region.
  • Promote co-ordination and networking in the sector
  • To support, coordinate or facilitate appropriate training, resources and information as highlighted by the youth sector where possible
  • To provide and collect advice and information on activities, projects and issues
  • To assist the non-government youth sector, governments and their agencies and local communities to plan and implement appropriate strategies, program and projects that effect young people.

Events, activities and projects Council host:

  • REACT Youth Month
  • Stress Connection Program – teaching young people about stress and way to manage it – contact for more info
  • School Holiday activities

Youth Chronicles

This publication is produced through a partnership between our region's high schools, youth service providers and Bundaberg Regional Council.
The Youth Chronicles is released three times a year with a special edition released in December. Each issue contains stories about the great things our region's young people are doing and achieving.
Through region wide collaboration, stories are shared not only from our regions high school students, but also those young people who are no longer attending school. Every high school in the region is given the opportunity to provide two pages for each edition, with many schools getting students involved in the design of the pages, writing of stories and taking photos. Youth service providers are also provided with the opportunity to share there stories with these collected and included over two pages.

Youth Chronicles editions

We are more than you think.......

This project builds on Councils Youth Chronicles project in sharing the positive stories of our regions young people. For this project we have sort our a number of young adults, 9 to date, that attended school in our region and that are now out in the world of life and work. Most are still in our region working and some are now based in other locations across the world and have become great ambassadors. This project is one that shows young people that:

  • you can and should follow you dreams, big or small
  • young people do have jobs and work hard in our region
  • they should never give up
  • sometimes things don't always go to plan, if you even started with one, and that is ok

Each person has provided us with a range of photos and have written their stories in their own words about their journey into the world after school. We have turned these into story boards that we have printed and will now place on display across the region at varied events with the first having been YouthFest Gin GIn on 8 April and the next major display  at the Youth Summit After Dark event on 30 April 2019.  With the assistance of the QLD Government Youth Week grant, we have also been able to turn 3 of these stories into videos.

Please find below the 9 stories we have collected so far with links to the video stories we have available.

We hope to build on this project by collecting and sharing more stories of our regions now young adults. If you know someone who feel would fit into this, please give us a call on 1300 883 699 or email comdev@bundaberg.qld.gov.au and speak with our Youth Development Officer.

Youth Development Action Plan

Council's Youth Development Officer had been working with young people for 12 months on the writing of the Youth Development Action Plan 2017-2023.  Approximately 1000 young people and 15 youth service providers were apart of the development of this document, by either a survey, the RE:ACT Youth Summit 2017 or other engagement activities held during November 2016 - April 2017.

The Youth Development Action Plan is a working, living orientated guide book that is broken down into specific areas and actions as developed in partnership with young people. Through our engagement process, 6 key themes were identified:
1. Community Safety
2. Engaged and Connected
3. Social and Emotional Wellbeing
4. Education and Employment
5. Physical space and Health
6. Environment

These have then been broken down into priority areas under each theme. You will find in the Youth Development Action Plan that under each theme area, the priority areas, and ways we are looking to meet the needs.