Youth Leadership

Youth Advisory Team

YAT Master Image 1 Oct 2022

YAT Master Image 2 Oct 2022

YAT Master Image 3 Oct 2022

 

"I do this work to make sure that no child feels the pain I felt. And when I reflect on that, it's clear to me that if the people I am doing this work for are youth, then it is them I must do this work with. There is no other way."

Get to know us

The Youth Advisory Team (YAT) is a small but mighty team of rangatahi who are under 25 and have lived experience of accessing mental health and addiction services. We are the youth lived experience experts at Whāraurau. Our job is to support young people working in roles like ours, understand what young people need from mental health and addiction services, and support Whāraurau's work programmes by providing a youth perspective. We believe that the care young people receive should be informed by young people, and we are here to be that voice. 

Wanna get involved? 

  • Join our DMC.
  • Become a Youth Consumer Advisor (YCA).
  • Email us.

Younger than 25? 

DMC - Deep Meaningful Conversations

The DMCs are an opportunity for rangatahi who’ve experienced mental health challenges to come together and reimagine mental health in Aotearoa New Zealand. This project started in 2019, and since then we’ve created videos and written reports to share what we’ve learnt.

To read what rangatahi are saying, read about our latest report: He Mana Taiohi: Understanding Mana Motuhake (2021) below; and our guide to Youth-Informed Transformation (2019) 

 

Keen to be part of future DMCs? Are you younger than 25? Have you struggled with your mental health?

We want to hear from you! We want to know what you love and what you hate. More than anything, we want to know what you would change. 

 

That’s why we’ve started DMC. The DMCs are a series of workshops where young people who know how bad things can be, get together to talk about how things could be better. We think having these DMCs will:

  1. Create a national network of young people.
  2. Generate a consensus about what young people care about.
  3. Support young people to make their dreams a reality. 
  4. Put the perspectives of young people at the centre of health & wellbeing decisions.
  5. Allow us (YCAs) to actually represent you.
  6. And eventually, create an Aotearoa New Zealand where all young people thrive.

Keen?

Join the movement here.

DMC Youth-Informed Transformation

The DMC Report 2022 summarises the perspectives of rangatahi who have lived experience in accessing mental health and/or addiction services. Navigating relationships in the era of social media, the influence of gender roles, and accessing ongoing and affordable care were recurring themes in the DMC hui held in 2022. Recommendations were made for how services can best meet the needs of young people, considering these themes. This report also presents young people's ideal clinician and ideal service, along with suggestions for youth friendly space designs, and the use of apps and websites with the intention of sparking inspiration for the development of youth friendly spaces.


Thank you in advance for reading this report! If you have any questions, please direct them to the YCA  team:
[email protected]

DMC Youth-Informed Transformation

He Mana Taiohi - Understanding Mana Motuhake

It is with great pleasure that the youth team at Whāraurau presents to you the 2021 DMC Report: He Mana Taiohi: Understanding Mana Motuhake

This report is a summary of perspectives from rangatahi with lived-experience about mental health services. Major themes include navigating meaningful relationships amongst social media, the impact of gender roles, and accessing care. This report also has a detailed visual design of the ideal service, for which we hope inspires you towards making your youth spaces as inviting as possible.

This report would not have been possible without the rangatahi youth who came forward and shared their experiences. It is to them that we dedicate this document.


Thank you in advance for reading this report! If you have any questions, please direct them to the YCA  team:
[email protected]

2021 DMC Report Cover: He Mana Taiohi - Understanding Mana Motuhake

Taiohi share their views

DMC 2021  Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland

DMC 2019  Ōtepoti | Dunedin

The purpose of creating this youth-friendly audit was to develop an accessible tool with achievable goals that allows youth services to assess and improve the youth-friendliness of their spaces. The Youth Friendly Audit tool provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating the environment, resources, safety, accessibility, and services offered to young people as well as some additional recommendations. By utilising this tool, organisations can identify areas for improvement and make necessary changes to create a more welcoming and supportive environment for youth.

Access youth-friendly audit tool here.

 

Youth friendly services: An audit tool

 

Resources for Youth Consumer Advisors

Gathering Rangatahi Voices

We work to support YCAs across the country by creating resources, providing mentorship, and sharing their journey in their role. To do this, we facilitate NYCAN, the National Youth Consumer Advisor Network. If you’re a young person with experience of mental health challenges, and your role calls on you to use that experience to influence decisions, then you’re a YCA, and we’re here to help.

You can download our YCA Guide for new YCAs by clicking on the cover or on the link below. If you'd like to request a copy, please email [email protected]

If you’re new to the YCA gig, there are four things you’ll want to do:

  1. Download our YCA Guide for new YCAs
  2. Chuck us an email at [email protected]
  3. Check out the Taiohi Times 
  4. Listen to our YAT Chat series
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Gathering Rangatahi Voices image

► YAT Chats: North Island Noise

► YAT Chats: The Voice of Vincent

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YSL

Youth Leadership Symposium

Inspired by the International Initiative of Mental Health Leadership (IIMHL) Exchange Network meeting, the Youth Leadership Symposium 2022– Mana Rangatahi Hui Taumata was created to allow young people to develop solutions to the challenges facing youth mental health in New Zealand.

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TTT image Oct 2022

The Taiohi Times

The Taiohi Times is a quarterly newsletter produced by the Youth Advisory Team at Whāraurau, with submissions by members of the National Youth Consumer Advisors Network (NYCAN).

The purpose of The Taiohi Times is primarily to celebrate and share the work we are all doing around the motu, and grow a sense of community amongst our workforce. The other aim of the newsletter is to showcase the work that we are doing in the wider sector and educate about the intricacies of the roles and the value that we as young people bring to the sector. Sign up to our mailing list to receive future issues of The Taiohi Times.

 

Resources for Services

Improving youth participation

The best services are part of their community and place the fundamental values of the whānau they serve at the heart of their practice. Ensuring rangatahi and broader whānau are part of your decision-making is central to becoming one of these services. So how do you do it?

There are lots of ways! Our job is to help you answer this question in a way that works for you. You may find the following resources helpful:

 

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YCA Guide

We work to support YCAs across the country by creating resources, providing mentorship, and sharing their journey in their role. To do this, we facilitate NYCAN, the National Youth Consumer Advisor Network. If you’re a young person with experience of mental health challenges, and your role calls on you to use that experience to influence decisions, then you’re a YCA, and we’re here to help.

You can download our YCA Guide for new YCAs by clicking on the image. 

► Employ a Youth Consumer Advisor

A Youth Consumer Advisor (YCA) is the bridge between the young people that use a service, and decision-makers within the health sector. They work to collect the experiences of young people, and use these to advise on proposed projects. YCAs bring their own experience of using services, and lend creativity and passion to their work. They can play an essential role in connecting services across a region, and even help to build an effective ecosystem of care. If you’d like to explore what employing a YCA could entail, take a look at the toolkit to employ a YCA:

  • This toolkit includes templates for a Job Description, Job Ad, and Poster, as well as guidance on things like pay and hours.
  • Youth Advisory Groups (YAGs): YAGs are a formal way to collect qualitative feedback about a service. As a young person nears the end of their time in a service, inviting them to join a YAG can give them the opportunity to reflect on their time there, make friends with people that shared their journey, and to provide feedback and guidance that changes things for the young people that follow them. A well run YAG can contribute to a young person's journey of healing and self-discovery, while also ensuring a service is able to constantly improve.
  • One-off consultation: While this isn’t a sustainable model of engagement, it can be a useful way to collect feedback on a big or sudden change. Because you won’t have time to build relationships with the young people you’re consulting, our best advice is to get help. The following guide provides our advice on how to pull a one-off consultation off:

If you’d like to explore either of these options further, consider alternatives, or work with us to promote opportunities, drop us a line at [email protected]

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Orientation Template

The Orientation Template was developed to support mental health and addiction services to onboard new Youth Consumer Advisors (YCAs). Acknowledging that each service is unique, the intention of this resource is to provide a flexible template that can be used in the orientation and onboarding process. The template is editable and can be adapted to fit each organisation. It covers information such as how to onboard a YCA, YCA responsibilities, and support for YCA training at the start and throughout the role. The document is beneficial for both services/employers and their YCA.

Youth-approved resources

"If you're looking to co-design systems with young people, start when they walk in the door to your service. Go 'Hey, I'm really glad you've come to see me today. What do you need?' Start by co-designing their care, and if what they need is not something you can give them, find them someone that can."

This page contains resources that have been reviewed and approved by the YAT at Whāraurau. While these are not resources produced by us, they are great resources that we believe are beneficial to the work we do and the sector.

Resources for making your service better

Resources for rangatahi

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Stay in the know with regular updates from the Whāraurau YAT team. 

 

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