Engagement to Develop Programs vs. Programs to Develop Engagement: Community Development with Young People

Strelein A¹*

1. The City of Swan, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

“Youth Development” is widely used to describe types of activities that engage young people in order to assist in their positive development. The City of Swan instead applies the term more as community development with young people. The City has developed a model focused on creating and supporting opportunities for communities to develop their own youth activities, rather than local governments themselves running them.

The City of Swan youth development model, by coming back to core community development principles, is creating active, committed communities working themselves to enhance the opportunities for their local young people. This is most visually evident by the fact that within the City there are four independent community based Youth Services/Centres, and other significant community based youth initiatives.

This presentation will outline this approach particularly using a case example of recent youth development work in one local suburb, and also promises to outline some innovative new activities and models supporting communities and community groups to maintain independence.

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