Projects

Timeframe: 2002

Source: Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, Social Policy Branch

This research explores the question: 'How can government best support communities to work with their own marginalised young people?'  More broadly, it looks at capacity building in young people and their communities, and explores what this 'enabling' might look like. Botsman and Latham's concept of 'the Enabling State' is pivotal in framing this research. The key elements of these enabling state processes are:

• Government remains an all-important source of social support.  There can be no withdrawal of resources; the focus is on redevelopment;
• It is communities, not bureaucracies who have a central role in defining, delivering and managing appropriate forms of social action; and
• Government funding and bureaucracies become servants of communities, not masters

There are two pertinent and related sets of questions:

• Firstly, when communities undertake projects that work with their own marginalised young people, what do they look like?  How do they work? In order to sustain their projects, what do they require from government?

• Secondly, when governments put these principles into practice, what does it look like? For whom can / does it work? What conceptual company do the principles keep? How do they function on the ground? Regarding these arrangements, what is the experience of practitioners in communities?

The research team used four related methods to answer these research questions.

1. A literature review on enabling state principles and community development. This also linked youth development and resilience literature to the concepts and ideas being generated by enabling state approaches
2. Identification of individuals, agencies and organisations who were practicing elements of enabling state principles
3. Interviews with these groups and the development of case studies of practice and models exemplifying the enabling state principles
4. A forum with key stakeholders to discuss key concepts related to enabling state principles and the implications for government and practice in communities.

Primarily, fieldwork involved talking to community-based groups who already work well with marginalised young people, asking the questions 'What helps?' and 'What gets in the way?'

Despite the enormous challenge that a shift towards enabling state principles would involve, we found strong evidence that this shift is already happening in some places.  The report offers examples, models and principles of best practice and points to some directions that could be pursued at many levels.  It explores cross-sectorial approaches or 'joined up solutions'.

This was a joint project between the Australian Youth Research Centre and the Centre for Adolescent Health, both at Melbourne University.

Contact: Ani Wierenga, Johanna Wyn

Contact:yrc-info@unimelb.edu.au