Youth Development Australia
Since 2005 a group of leading thinkers and practitioners have been building Youth Development Australia to improve the lives of young people in Australia, with a foundational commitment to disadvantaged young Australians.
Youth Development Australia (YDA) focuses on innovative and pioneering projects including the development of programs, think tanks, and conferences that champion and give a voice to disadvantaged young people.
Youth Development Australia’s key initiatives include:
The National Youth Commission (NYC)
is an independent, non-partisan community Inquiry exploring the issues and challenges young people face as they prepare to enter the workforce.
The Inquiry brings together the lived experiences of young people across Australia as well as experts and community involvement to create solutions that address the issues and challenges facing young people.
The Youth Futures Summit (YFS)
The Youth Futures Summit brings together thousands of people from a diverse range of sectors of Australia and the international community to re-imagine the biggest challenges, and systemic issues, impacting young people today. The bi-annual event is organised, run, co-presented, co-attended and shaped by young people, to ensure the event is as relevant and impactful as possible.
YouthWorx
YouthWorx is a film production social enterprise run to give disadvantaged young people skills and experience. In 14 years YouthWorx has trained thousands of young people, produced over 600 commissioned films for more than 350 clients, and created more than 160,000 hours of paid employment, training and work experience for disadvantaged young people.
National Youth Homelessness Conference
The National Youth Homelessness Conference is held bi-annually. In the first conference, held in 2019, issued a ‘Communique’ seeking four main areas of strategic action, in ‘early intervention’, ‘rapid rehousing’, ‘engagement’ in education and training opportunities and ‘extended state care’. The culmination of this work was a recommendation to develop a national plan to end Youth Homelessness. You can read the full report here.
Find out more about Youth Development Australia here.
