The “Northland Youth Voices” project was commissioned by the Northland Intersectoral Forum (NIF) to provide information that would help it deliver on its strategic priority of realising youth potential. NIF gave the Ministry of Youth Development (MYD) the responsibility to develop the survey focus and questions. The survey design reflected what the MYD members on NIF knew to be important to the Forum. The NIF comprises local and central government agencies working in a collaborative way to make a positive difference to the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of Northlanders.
There were 401 young people who participated in this “Northland Youth Voices” consultation. The consultation used a survey delivered by face to face consultations across the region. The survey was also available online. The survey’s questions were clustered around the themes of youth issues, knowledge of decision makers, awareness and use of local government and youth voices. This report presents analysis of the consultation results. At the time of the survey Northland did not have formal youth voice mechanism feeding into local and regional decision making, i.e. youth councils or regional youth advisory youth groups. So a specific goal of the consultation was identifying the views of young people on youth voice mechanisms.