Our first Youth Action Plan

The Shire of Denmark has adopted our first-ever Youth Action Plan (YAP), titled “Level Up: Youth Action Plan 2025–2029”, setting a strategic direction to better support young people aged 12–25 in the community. The plan was shaped through extensive consultation involving over 200 young people, as well as parents, caregivers, organisations, and Shire staff.

The YAP focuses on creating safe, welcoming spaces and programs by upgrading youth-related areas such as Berridge Park, the Denmark Library, and the Recreation Centre, while expanding popular initiatives like School Holiday programs and Youth Fest with more free or low‑cost activities.

Key priorities include:

• Improving access to mental health and support services
• Advocating for better transportation options
• Encouraging inclusion for young people with diverse needs
• Strengthening communication and involvement through youth-friendly channels and advisory opportunities

Building our first youth-focused strategy.

The Shire of Denmark developed its inaugural Youth Strategy in response to our community telling us that it is time to focus on Youth Services. We engaged the Youth Affairs Council of WA (YACWA) to help us do this work.

Why we developed a Youth Action Plan

The aim of the Youth Action Plan is to better understand what is important to young people and identify what we need to do to improve our offerings and services for young people in Denmark. To do this we spoke with:

• Young people aged 12 to 25 who live, work, study, volunteer or visit/use groups and services in the Shire
• Parents and caregivers of young people
• Groups and organisations (including businesses) that work with or have a connection to young people
• Shire staff and Elected Members

How we involved residents in the Youth Action Plan

Peer researchers

We spoke with lots of young people to help us find out what actions to focus on. We recruited six young people aged 15 to 25, who live, work, study, or visit/use groups and services in the Shire to be peer researchers.

The peer researchers helped us design a youth survey and youth interview questions and gave us advice on how to promote all of these to young people. They then wnt out into the community and each surveyed 30 young people aged 12 to 25 and conduct a small number of ‘vox pop’ style interviews.

The survey and interview delivery phase ran from 1st August to 9th September.

Youth Survey

To help us develop our inaugural Youth Strategy our survey was targeted at:

• Young people (aged 12 to 25) who live, study, work, volunteer or visit the Shire
• Parents/caregivers of young people aged 12 to 25
• Interested community members who wanted to improve offerings for young people

Young people went in a draw to win a $100 EFTPOS gift card, and Parents/caregivers & community members went in the draw to win a $50 EFTPOS gift card.

The information provided was used to set the direction for youth services in the Shire over the next five years.

Youth Workshops

Youth workshops were held with schools and groups in the Shire.

Parents and Caregivers Survey

Parents and caregivers of young people aged 10 to 25 in the Shire had the opportunity to have their say on current service provision and provide ideas about opportunities for the future via a parent and caregiver survey.

One-on-one Interviews

We held one on one interviews via phone and via videoconference from June through to August 2024. These were open to any individual, group, organisation, or business that connected with young people including youth services, community services, recreation services, faith groups, schools and other education providers and businesses.

Community Postcard Campaign

From July through to September 2024 we rolled out a postcard campaign where we asked everyone in the community to share one wish or big idea they had for young people in the Shire.

Solutions-focused Roundtable

In October 2024 we held a solutions-focused roundtable with groups, organisations, and businesses to present the consultation data and have a big picture look at the systems at play in the Shire (and beyond). In this workshop, we involved attendees in codesigning actions and initiatives that went into the YAP.

The aim of this session was two-fold:

1. To reflect back to you want we heard and where we feel we needed to focus our attention
2. To use design principles to flesh out our solutions and actual actions that went into the YAP

We invited anyone who worked with young people in the Shire of Denmark to this roundtable, including services, organisations, groups, education providers etc. Some Shire staff were also in attendance.

The focus of this workshop was very much on solutions! The aim at the end of this session was for community members to have a good idea of the types of things the YAP would address and help us with tangible ideas of actions.

How I can get more information

If you want to speak with someone at the Shire about this, please contact Andy Percy, Community Development Officer on 9848 0300 or info@denmark.wa.gov.au

The Shire of Denmark Youth Strategy project is supported by the Department of Communities.

Check out our Youth Fest event for 2024!

Thanks to everyone who came along to Youth Fest and made it such a wonderful day.