Forum tackles youth wellbeing
Some of Palmerston North’s young people are living in fear.
They are living in communities where people don’t work, surrounded by bad influences.
Some do not have enough food, are homeless or separated from families, and fear they have no future, or will repeat the family patterns around them leading to unemployment and jail.
Those are some of the stories heard at a youth wellbeing forum in the city in April and presented to city councillors in a report from youth services team leader Remy Waldteufel-Irvine and group manager for community services Anton Carter.
Mayor Grant Smith said he had been the main instigator of the forum, which was set up in response to issues with vandalism and anti-social behaviour in Te Marae o Hine/The Square, to understand why young people were behaving badly and what gaps there were in the services available to support them.
A range of gaps were laid out by representatives of more than 100 groups that attended.
Common themes were frontline staff skills shortages, high turnover and funding barriers.
Some of the services young people wanted but could not find included safe places for different age groups, programmes for those not in education, employment and training, and the need for more role models and mentors, especially outside school.
Councillor Pat Handcock took the lead in proposing a $100,000 budget be referred to the draft long-term plan debate to support development of a youth wellbeing plan and some actions.
The report said Palmerston North’s population was made up of 22.1% young people aged 10 to 24 years, higher than the national average of 19.2%.
Children and young people aged from birth to 24 years made up 30% of the population.
Handcock said the city council needed to invest in those young people, or some of them would never realise their potential and develop into tomorrow’s citizens doing positive things in the community.
He said the council had a responsibility for social wellbeing, and it was clear all those involved needed to do something better, collectively, to help young people out of negative cycles, and set them on a path to being pro-social and productive adults.
But Smith and five other councillors baulked at the idea of proposing significant spending when it was not even clear where the money would go.
Smith said the council already had five staff working on youth services and contributed about $700,000 a year either directly or indirectly to programmes for young people.
He said the council should be careful about trying to plug every single gap when it was not funded to do so.
“The drums are beating out there,” he said, in reference to community opposition to council spending and proposed double-digit rates rises.
Councillor Vaughan Dennison said he did not want to raise expectations when the council was already facing budgets for capital and operational spending that were unsustainable. Handcock’s proposal was passed 10-6. Those who voted against the proposed budget were Smith and Dennison, and councillors Roly Fitzgerald, Leonie Hapeta, Billy Meehan and Karen Naylor.