Covid19 and Young people
Inner Northern Youth Employment Taskforce

The COVID-19 pandemic is triggering profound crises around the world, and the social, economic and political fallout from these crises is likely to be longer and deeper than any recession for several generations. The impact will be significant, and long-term for young people - in terms of their health and well-being, education and training, and employment pathways.

In response to the COVID19 pandemic, the Inner Northern Youth Employment Taskforce (INYET) is initiating the COVID-19 Recovery Scenario for young people in Melbourne’s Inner North initiative.

The Taskforce has cross sector membership with representation by local leaders from community, business, local government, schools, education provides TAFE and universities who have been working together for the past five years.

 

The COVID-19 Recovery Scenarios

 The COVID-19 Recovery Scenarios is a process to identify the key COVID related challenges facing young people in the inner north, and plan how to respond. This will be a six month process focused on developing innovative scenarios to meet these unprecedented challenges.

Why

The COVID-19 pandemic is triggering social, economic and political crises around the world.  The economic fallout from COVID-19 is likely to be longer and deeper than any recession for several generations, and the impact could be profound on the careers of young people. Previous recessions and depressions in the 1920s, 1980s, and 2008 suggest a recovery will take at least a decade.

The Grattan Institute Report Shutdown: estimating the COVID -19 employment shock initial estimates are that the impact for young people aged between 20-30 will be an unemployment rate around 30%, and for those aged between 15-19, a rate in excess of 40%. Young people aged between 18-25 were surveyed by YACVIC in May about the impact of the pandemic on their lives, and 55% reported that employment and income support was their greatest concern.

Stakeholder Interview Report 

Impact of COVID-19 on young people 

This INYET report identifies some of the key challenges facing young people in the inner north of Melbourne, as well as what may come next. The Report covers the views of a wide range of local agency representatives on the impact of COVID-19 and the implications for young people in the inner north. Read here

Who is involved?

The INYET is working in partnership with UNEVO-RMIT University (UNEVOC) with backbone project support provide by INLLEN. By partnering with UNEVOC-RMIT University we will gain rapid access to international data, research and analysis, developing responses to the emerging health, education, skills and employment needs of young people.

Professor Peter Kelly

Professor Peter Kelly
Professor Of Education, Head UNESCO UNEVOC, at RMIT University

Blog: Young People and the Anthropocene

Project Phases

The project is collecting information from individuals, organizations and agencies across the region. Young people will also contribute their views.

In the second half of 2020, we will:

Project Phases

  • Provide a short online survey available to all INLLEN members and contacts
  • Hold one-on-one online interviews with approximately 35 individuals
  • Seek recorded contributions from 60 young people contacted through local agencies
  • Review the latest data, forecasts and other available relevant research.
  • Two Scenario Planning Workshops will then bring all the data and information together.

What will result from this?

The Scenario development process will place a priority on place-based responses, which will include:

  • A shared understanding of the situation young people find themselves in.
  • A regional overview of the priority needs of young people and the strategies and initiatives being adopted by each organisation or agency.
  • Identifying opportunities for collaborative effort to respond to the needs of young people, where individual organisation/agency responses are limited.

UNEVOC-RMIT will publish a Preferred Scenario Report with recommendations for release and communication capable of influencing place-based responses as well as informing government responses.

 

Covid 19 Recovery Scenario Report 

The COVID-19 Recovery Scenarios for Young People in Melbourne’s Inner North project is a scenario planning project that seeks to develop research-informed scenarios of possible futures for young people in Melbourne’s inner north in 2025.

This report presents a summary of a more detailed Final Report and is focussed on the:
1. The three scenarios for 2025
2. An outline of a proposed project to identify and develop a cohort of Youth Activists for Sustainable Futures (YASFs). 1

View Summary Report

View Full Report

Interview Series

Emerging Themes for Young People

Health and Well-being;   Education and Training;   The Economy and Livelihood;   Community

Check out our new video series compiled from our recent stakeholder interviews for the 'COVID-19 Recovery Scenarios' project.

These video series are a collection of voices representing local schools, education institutions, community agencies, and local business & industry on how COVID-19 has impacted young people in Melbourne's inner north.

The conversations from those working with young people are helping inform the development of Future Scenarios for education, work, wellbeing and community engagement?

View, the entire series, or catch up on the latest video instalments go to our Youtube Channel

Project Commentary

Professor Peter Kelly and his UNEVOC team have created a series of blog posts on the project under four key themes that have emerged from the consultations which include video content of both young people and our key stakeholder interviews. unevocrmit.org

Four Key Themed Blog posts

Virtual Forum 

The forum utilised an innovative, online market research platform (Mc Nair-Yellowsquare) to host the interactive facilitated event, and was open to participants from Wednesday 28th to Friday 30th October 2020 for 3 days.

In the forum, participants were asked to engage with young people’s voices, stakeholder contributions and various resources to provide insight and thought in relation to possible futures facing young people in the inner north.

This forum is a vital element in the critical work of developing place-based COVID-19 recovery scenarios for young people in the inner north - and we greatly appreciate the effort and time to those who participated in this work.

For all enquiries contact:

David Kennedy

Inner Northern LLEN Executive Officer

E: dkennedy@inllen.org.au