Consultation open on Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy
Thu 01 Nov 2018
The Government is inviting feedback to inform development of the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy. Feedback and submissions can be submitted ...
The Government is inviting feedback to inform development of the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy.
Feedback and submissions can be submitted until 5 December 2018.
Feedback is invited from:
- children and young people
- adults and whānau
- local government, iwi, service providers, academics
- non-government organisation, business and community sectors.
To give feedback, you can fill out a short online survey, send a postcard online to the Prime Minister or make a formal submission. See the following webpages from the Child Wellbeing Unit for more information:
The Government is looking for feedback on
- "The framing of wellbeing for the initial Strategy;
- The proposed vision statement for the initial Strategy;
- The proposed set of outcomes sought for all children and young people;
- The 16 potential focus areas proposed for the initial Strategy."
As well as your ideas on what needs to change and how change can be achieved, the Government is also asking for:
- "Your ideas for improving the wellbeing of children and young people;
- Your view on how different parts of New Zealand society (government, local government, iwi, business, NGOs, Churches, etc.) can work individually and/or collectively to improve the wellbeing of children and young people;
- Research and analysis on aspects of child and youth wellbeing;
- Any other relevant material and/or comments on the current state of child and youth wellbeing."
Two Cabinet papers are available:
- Cabinet paper: Child Wellbeing Strategy: Scope and Public Engagement Process (May 2018)
- Cabinet paper: Process for Developing the First Child Wellbeing Strategy (Jan 2018)
More recently, the Child Wellbeing Unit published the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy Proposed Outcomes Framework. The proposed framework includes 16 potential focus areas with a number of items related to family violence, child abuse, children in care, bullying and more.
For more information see the background about the development of the strategy and related documents and our previous story Government starting work to develop Child Wellbeing Strategy.
Update: The Office of the Children's Commissioner has developed a Child and youth engagement toolkit to support organisations to talk to children and young people about wellbeing. The toolkit is designed to help organisations talk with about wellbeing with children and young people to inform their submission and provide feedback to the Children's Commissioner.
Related news
The Social Services and Community Committee released the final report on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, with a recommendation that it be passed with amendment. The bill would require the Government develop and report on a child wellbeing strategy. For more information on the proposed legislation see our previous story Submissions invited on Child Poverty Reduction Bill (submissions closed on 4 April 2018).
Statistics New Zealand is still seeking feedback on developing indicators to measure success for Aotearoa New Zealand. The indicators are intended to align with the Treasury's Living Standards Framework. Treasury is developing the Framework to help guide policy. Earlier this year Treasury published a series of discussion papers on wellbeing measures. More recently, Treasury commissioned a proposal for a Living Standards Dashboard related to monitoring intergenerational wellbeing.
The Government also recently completed a consultation on the proposed approach to "investing for social wellbeing," and a policy for the protection and use of personal information.
The Ministry of Social Development has created a Child Impact Assessment Tool (2018). The tool is designed to help government and non-government organisations look at whether policy proposals will improve the wellbeing of children and young people.
Ara Taiohi and ActionStation have recently published a report on youth wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand: Ngā Kōrero Hauora O Ngā Taiohi: A community-powered report on conversations with 1,000 young people (2018).
Related research
For research on children's exposure to intimate partner violence, see our previous story New position brief on the need to address child abuse and intimate partner violence together.
For research on the family justice system and Family Court, see Reading list on family justice system, Family Court.
For further research related to children in the NZFVC library, a great place to start is the Quick Topic Search page (click 'child abuse' or 'young people'). From there you can refine your search using the options down the left hand side.
Selected media
Image: Samuel Zeller on Unsplash