Five priorities for improving youth engagement in Minto, Mapleton and Wellington North were identified at the North for Youth event here, put on by the North Wellington Coalition for Youth Resiliency.
Priorities established include: increasing awareness of programs and resources in the municipalities; creating a youth council and focusing on youth engagement; increasing ease of attending programs by considering transportation, cost and location; increasing inter-generational interaction, relationships and mutual respect; and removing barriers and finding ways to increase collaboration to keep community momentum, said Alison Vasey, community youth resiliency worker for the Mount Forest Family Health Team.
The coalition will work to implement the priorities in the Town of Minto, the Township of Mapleton and the Township of Wellington North in the future, Vasey said. However, she did not have a firm schedule.
The North for Youth event on Feb. 21 involved 41 participants, five of whom were youth from within the community, and was held at Kenilworth Public School.
“We really wanted to encourage the youth to come so that … their voice would be in the room and the adults who were in the room could … hear,” Vasey explained. “It’s one thing when you present data and you give that information but when you have a young person sitting at the table saying, ‘I don’t feel like I’m recognized in my community’ or ‘I don’t feel like I belong,’ it really hits home.”
The other participants were youth service providers, members of the faith community, members from council and other community members who simply have concerns about youth, Vasey said.
After hearing survey results about their daily lives from 403 youth from Wellington Heights Secondary School and Norwell District Secondary School, the North for Youth participants identified the five priorities for youth as the most important to address within the communities.
The survey showed that over 80 per cent of youth in Minto, Mapleton and Wellington North do not think their neighbours take responsibility for monitoring their behaviour (86% in Minto, 80% in Mapleton and 89% in Wellington North), about 75% of youth do not do community work for an hour or more a week (77% in Minto, 64% in Mapleton and 79% in North Wellington), and more than 60% do not feel they are encouraged and supported by their neighbours (63% in Minto, 66% in Mapleton and 71% in Wellington North).
Though the survey showed holes in youth engagement, North for Youth participants also identified areas where the communities are connecting with young people: Sports teams, volunteer opportunities, faith-based community groups, theatre programs, 4-H clubs, Junior Farmers’ Association of Ontario and school resources, Vasey said.
The participants also identified some of the weaker areas: a lack of diversity in the type of Sports offered, a lack of youth awareness about what is available within the community, a poor connection between youth and adults in the community, differences between what is offered in the three municipalities, transportation, a lack of formal youth voice within the communities, a lack of engagement and a limited selection of people involved in running the extra curricular activities, Vasey said.
The North Wellington Coalition for Youth Resiliency will pick up the priorities and act on them.
“We want this to be … the community’s vision and the community has obviously guided what it is,” Vasey said. “So the community is the leader in forming the vision and the strategies [and] the coalition and the service providers are going to implement and support what’s come from this vision.”
