MacDonald, Fiona ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1966-0810, Woods, Brett ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1580-4258 and Corney, Tim ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1980-6835 (2025) Future Proof: Young People, Disaster Recovery and (Re)building Communities Research Report. Research Report. Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria.

Abstract

The Future Proof: Young People, Disaster Recovery and (Re)building Communities project (‘Future Proof’) was funded by the Federal Government following the Black Summer bushfires. The project emerged from the Youth Affairs Council Victoria (‘YACVic’) and Victoria University’s Youth and Community Research Group’s (‘VU’) work across bushfire-affected communities in 2020-2021. In this work, young people told us that they were restricted or excluded from their local communities’ response following the bushfires. In response, Future Proof drew on the expertise of YACVic and VU in youth participation, professional youth work principles and community development practices, alongside 12 regional and rural partners with expertise and knowledge of the needs of their communities. The aim of the place-based, collective impact partnership was to engage young people in bushfire-affected areas of Victoria and connect them with their local communities to promote youth participation and disaster resilience. Future Proof aimed to build skills and qualifications pathways and upskill young people in courses that would engage them across the various and diverse areas of emergency management. The project aimed to: 1. increase youth worker capacity; 2. promote engagement with local young people; 3. co-design and co-deliver local programs based on local needs and focused on disaster preparedness, response recovery and resilience; and 4. provide coordination and promote synergies between youth-focused activities delivered by local community organisations. To enable the delivery of the youth-led activities, Future Proof partners employed youth workers and young peer workers, with internal management and administration support for each partner. The aspirational project goal of ‘youth participation’ was also a key organising concept outlined early in the Future Proof project. It was conveyed as an important underpinning principle for the placed-based nature of the project and also for the project outcomes. Young people needed to be engaged, authentically involved, and have genuine voice and agency in the local design and delivery of the various components of the project deliverables. This principle was informed by the following rationale: “Participation, and the inclusion of young people in decisions that affect them, is important to professional youth and community work practice.”1 Youth participation is about rights and citizenship, founded on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Article 12, which declares that ”children and young people have the right to participate in decisions being made about them.”v Participation improves outcomes: if you involve young people in decisionmaking processes it makes things better.2 As such, the following overarching question informed VU’s role and practice as embedded researchers: What does youth participation look like in the Future Proof project? VU was the embedded research partner in the Future Proof project. VU’s role included relationship building, methodological scoping, ethics approvals, data collection, analysis, presentations, and publications. VU also engaged with the partners to actively involve them in the research process and an iterative process of feedback with partners to ensure validation of the high-level themes that emerged from the research. In this research report we report on findings from the youth-focused practices and roles in Future Proof, from the youth participation principles and practices that were adopted by the partners, to the youth advisory groups established by the partners and youth peer workers who were employed by the partners. The increased youth capacity in the partner organisations was identified as a major contributor to the success of Future Proof. More detailed findings of the impact of youth participation include: ▪ the increased capacity of partner organisations to connect with young people in communities; building connections between emergency management teams and organisations with young people; ▪ the promotion of youth participation and the empowerment of young people; ▪ the establishment of youth advisory groups in a paid capacity saw 183 young people, aged 12-25 years, actively engaged across the partners; and ▪ youth peer workers played a significant role in the success of Future Proof, with most having a positive impact on the partner organisations both internally and in the broader community. As a place-based collective impact project, Future Proof brought together 14 partners in formal and informal ways. There were a number of challenges reported by partners, including limited time to scope and plan the project before implementation, as well as a perceived lack of input from regional and rural expertise in the co-design. Regional and rural partners were also conscious of the different bushfire experiences of their communities. A number of partners identified Future Proof as a unique opportunity to trial different approaches with young people in their communities. Enabling young people in regional and rural Victoria to access training and qualifications was a key aim of the Future Proof project. The partners overcame availability and accessibility barriers relating to training and qualifications and exceeded the expectations of the Future Proof project. For example, 172 young people enrolled in certificate or diploma level qualifications over the life of the project. A further 109 completed their training qualifications, with a further 162 currently finishing their training. Other courses were undertaken across youth work, public safety, and emergency management. A total of 1598 young people participated in 76 different trainings and workshops. Some young people took the opportunity to undertake multiple courses and training. A key finding from the Future Proof project was the importance of ‘time’ in regional and rural areas. Partners agreed that additional time for recruitment and staff development should be built into future projects. Including VU as an embedded research partner in Future Proof enabled evidence of the ambitious and extensive project to be captured across the three years of the project. It also enabled the upskilling of partner organisations to participate in all aspects of research, including research design in their local communities, abstract submission, conference dissemination, and publication in national and international journals. Overall, Future Proof more than achieved its training and qualification goals with young people. Importantly, it demonstrated how building expertise and networks with young people offers a constructive way to achieve real and locally relevant outcomes in communities following a disaster(s). Future Proof has provided valuable new knowledge and insights into how to actively involve young people in disaster recovery and demonstrated how youth participation, professional youth work principles, and community development practices can be utilised to achieve this goal.

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