Page 4220 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 21 September 2010
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inner suburban locations. However, there are common concerns which should be acknowledged.
The mentality that adults know best is still prevalent in many of our regulatory and service provision organisations and professional bodies. This should be a priority area for cross-portfolio collaboration, which includes work on child safety, inclusion and urban management. Consistent policy is clearly essential and can only be enhanced when we involve children and young people by consulting with them, listening and acting on their advice.
There is strong potential and a strong need for professionals and policy makers involved with children to collaborate with the urban development industry. Discussion of goals and measures should involve participation by young people themselves, recognising that different approaches to engaging children and young people are required across the age spectrum. Within Canberra, we need agreed objectives and measures for child and youth-friendly communities across a range of issues and data collected on relevant indicators. This work needs to be integrated into the growing body of population level and community level data on wellbeing that is being driven by the ABS and various state governments.
A key question for us all is: how are urban services, policies and practices broadly conceived—not just urban planning processes—shaping the wellbeing of children and young people in Canberra? Relevant service systems and policy settings should include transport, infrastructure, health, housing, education, community care, recreation and property law.
A focus on younger children needs to be complemented by a focus on adolescents and young adults, who, in turn, need to be involved in consideration of issues within the Canberra community. The distinctly different approaches to working with younger children in comparison with adolescents and young adults require more rigorous attention. Parents and caregivers are also critical, and their perspectives need to be included.
The general lack of consultation with children and young people cuts across all portfolio areas, not just planning and urban design, although that is a particular focus of mine. Consulting with our younger population is also highly relevant for issues like public transport planning—finding out how young people travel, how they get home at night; for arts planning—what kinds of arts activities do young people need or want or enjoy and for designing multicultural or Indigenous services and so on.
In the ACT we have a school system of high school until year 10 and then college to help children become young adults and to take on responsibilities, but this needs to be accompanied by the provision of appropriate activities for teenagers to participate in. We know that we, along with many other suburban-based cities, need to have more activities and appropriate spaces for teenagers in suburbs, activities which are more fun than trying to sneak into clubs underage.
When we look at the changes occurring in Canberra and the urban design issues, we must also consider other key questions. What are the implications of urban
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