YACVic Young Thinker in Residence program

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (20:31:19) — My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Youth Affairs, Ms Mikakos. The action I am seeking is in relation to the Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic) Young Thinker in Residence program. This program was an initiative of YACVic. They employed two young people aged between 18 and 21 to spend two days a week thinking on a social or political topic of their choice. The program ran for 16 weeks during this year, and it offered the young thinkers a desk at YACVic headquarters to develop their projects, along with full support and guidance from the YACVic team — and their extended networks — down on Flinders Street.

The end goal was something really quite remarkable. The two inaugural thinkers were Annika McCaffrey and Brittany Witnish. They really took this challenge up and did some fantastic work. Annika researched the impact of family violence on young people, and she produced an amazing video called The Hidden Victors. That video was associated with social media that talked about the impact of family violence on young people living at home. The video was quite fabulous and was about how we can empower those people. It also had some great recommendations.

Brittany Witnish took quite a detailed look at how to establish a peer support program for young out-of-home care leavers and the impacts of what happens when you are immediately independent when you turn 18. Both of these women created an exceptional body of work. I was so impressed with what they did.

The action I am seeking from the minister is that she look at funding this program next year and into the future, because I think the work that these young people did was fantastic. They brought their own experiences to both of these projects. Brittany was in out-of-home care and had to leave when she was 18, and Annika experienced family violence. That personal point of view and the ability for young people to come up with great ideas should, I think, be encouraged.