Youth Policy, Civics and Culture

This unit aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to work constructively within the policy and practice context of organisations serving young people. It looks specifically at the role of local government as an important player in shaping local communities and in supporting and connecting federal, state and community run services and activities within the community. As the third level of government, local government is often poorly understood and its impact on communities and their young people greatly underestimated. This unit allows students to gain insights into the council's role as a key planner for local, natural and built environments and the community, and a provider of numerous essential services, many of which play important roles in the lives of young people who live, go to school or recreate in that municipality. This unit seeks to provide an understanding of these impacts, their particular significance for young people, and how policy might shape them. The unit assessments also offer opportunities for students to demonstrate growing capabilities in becoming confident creative lifelong learners who can use their inter-cultural understanding of themselves and others to critically evaluate policies that enable or disable young people’s civic and human rights. As such, students learn to become politically engaged and ethical citizens who are inter-culturally aware and respectful to the diversity of their local communities and understand the intricacies of balancing between individual and public good.