Strategies for Social Changes: Addressing Youth Poverty in Australia

This study aims to understand the problem of youth poverty in Australia, identify goals or objectives to address the problem as well as strategies to achieve them. Short and long term and medium long term goals have been identified that can be used to address the problem of youth poverty in Australia. Potential obstacles to achieve change in this social issue have also been discussed.

Running head: STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
Youth Poverty
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
Introduction:
Poverty is a condition where individuals have very little or even no possession, money
and wealth. It can also be understood as the lack of power, social status, economic status,
political status or educational status. Poverty furthermore reduces access to several necessary
services such education and healthcare, due to which these individuals often lack proper
education and unable to meet their healthcare needs leading to increased risk of diseases.
Lack of education further limits the employability of these people, which adversely affects
their socio economic condition. Such adversities can increase the risks of problems such as
addiction, depression, suicide, deviant behaviours, domestic violence and sociopathy
(Hagenaars, 2017).
Poverty in youth is a global phenomenon, and millions of youth globally are deprived
of adequate resources and support to carry on with their day to day life. Lack of education,
money, healthcare and support framework, many of the youth have been adversely affected,
increasing the rate of health problems, crime, deviant behaviour and social problems (Kohler
et al., 2015).
The aim of this study is to understand the problem of youth poverty in Australia,
identify goals or objectives to address the problem as well as strategies to achieve them.
Some of the main obstacles to achieve the goals would also be discussed.
Academic Background
Poverty is a significant problem in Australia. It has been estimated that more than 1
million youth in Australia live in poverty, amounting to about 17.68% of all youth in
Australia. The poverty has increased in the last four years, from 13.3% in 2014. Moreover the
rates of poverty are higher among families with single parents, compared to couple parents.

2STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
Many of these impoverished youth lacks access to proper housing facilities with a majority of
them (59.78%) living in rental places (Saunders, 2018). Additionally, the rates of poverty
were most common in unemployed people. According to the estimates the families of about
63.25% of the unemployed people in Australia face poverty. Also, maintaining employment
is a challenge for many of the individuals living in poverty. This inability to provide for the
family leads to the youth living in poverty as well. About 53.7% of the families living in
poverty depends on social security to support their families. Additionally, the prevalence of
long term health conditions is also very high (about 44.3%) among these youth, compared to
rest of Australians (Saunders et el., 2016).
Studies have shown that poverty especially among the youth can lead to several
adverse outcomes. It can limit access to proper education which is necessary for early
development as well as to acquire professional skills. It limits access to healthcare leading to
poor health conditions and higher rates of mortality. It leads to improper or inadequate
nutrition and also causes food insecurity. Incidence of violence and crimes can increase in
impoverished neighbourhoods. These factors further aggravate each other, as one factor
causes others to become worse, thus showing how poverty can have disastrous consequences
for the youth (Mazza et al., 2017; Sätre et al., 2017).
Short and long term and medium long term goals to address the issue
The social systems framework helps to develop an understanding of the society as
supported through the network and inter relations between individuals, groups and
communities. A social system of a place helps to understand the society and its needs by
understanding human behaviour and the social environment (Hinkel et al., 2015).

3STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
Using the Social Systems framework, some of the short term and medium long term
goals have been identified that can be used to address the problem of youth poverty in
Australia (Bennett & Gosnell, 2015). These goals are:
Short Term Goals:
 Supporting education and development of professional skills and employability
among the youth..
 Providing support to the youth at all levels (personal, family, organization,
community, society and culture).
 Supporting Social equity for all Australian youth as a component of the ‘holon’.
 Providing adequate information to the youth regarding the support networks they have
access to and can utilise.
 Supporting their participation in programs to educate them and develop their
employability skills.
 Improving synergistic relation between the youth and the communities with social
support networks.
 Supporting social change in the communities and preventing social exclusion
Medium Long Term Goals:
 Reducing the rates of poverty in the next 4 years and prevent any increase in the rate
of poverty in youth.
 Improving the rates of education among youth with poverty.
 Increasing employment among youth with poverty.
 Improving the socio economic status of youth with poverty
 Improving housing status for youth living in poverty.

4STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
Strategy to achieve short term goals:
One of the best strategies in my opinion to address the short term goals is to use ‘Arts
for Social Change’ approach to foster social development in communities that are suffering
from poverty. One of the biggest challenges that are faced by these communities is the
problem with crimes and deviant behaviour which are further influenced by problems with
addiction and domestic violence and social exclusion. Youth below the poverty lines often
turn to deviancy and criminal activities due to a sense of a complete lack of support and
aggravated by food insecurities and health conditions. Art can be a significant strategy to help
in the development of strong communities that can help each other and also improve cohesion
and harmony in the society (Yassi et al., 2016).
Through arts, the youth can be motivated towards the development of artistic kills and
pave their way to intellectual and emotional development. In a heterogeneous society, arts
can cross cultural barriers and for youth it can help to develop a sense of value for
communities or groups. Artists can be inspiration for the youth, and they can also provide
advises that can help in the improvement of their conditions. Arts also can play an important
role to improve the employability skills of people, which can thus help to improve the
economic condition and health status. Artists also gets lot of recognition, and thus developing
the skills of art can help in the improvement of socio economic conditions. Studies have also
shown that involvement in arts not only helps to develop cohesion and emotional intelligence
among people, but also can reduce the rate of mental health problems. These aspects clearly
show that Art can significantly help to bring a social change and support the youth living in
poverty (Turner, 2017; Schryer, 2018).
Strategy to achieve medium to long term goals

5STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
To achieve the long term goals, it is vital to engage multiple systems to work in
unison to improve the condition of youth living in poverty and support them adequately. The
best approach towards this is the utilization of ‘parallel systems’. This system can help in the
involvement of the educational system, healthcare system, social support system, justice
system and policy systems to develop and implement action plans that can help to increase
education and employability among the youth. The education system can support in the early
developmental process of the youth, supported by social networks that can support the family
of the youths. The healthcare support system can take care of the healthcare needs of the
youth, improving their well being. The social support system can provide support to the youth
at personal, social, community and family levels, thereby supporting their access to important
services such as health and education. The justice and policy systems can be involved in the
protection of the rights of the youth and implementing policies that can support their well
being. Advocacy systems can also be involved in the process of helping social changes that
can increase support to the youth (Hareven, 2018).
The involvement of parallel systems can ensure that all the needs and requirements of
supporting the youth living in poverty are properly addressed, and promote an improvement
in the wellbeing of these people on the long run. Such synergistic collaboration can thus help
to reduce poverty in Australia. It can also be assumed that such system can also lead to social
reforms and improvement of the society as a whole through the upliftment of a significant
part of its population (Krantz, 2018).
Potential obstacles to achieve change in this social issue
Improving the condition of the youth living in poverty and helping to reduce poverty
levels has some significant challenges that needs to be overcome. These challenges can affect

6STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
the implementation of the strategies discussed above and can cause the maintenance of the
impoverished conditions. Some of the most significant challenges are:
Addiction and mental health problems: This can be a significant challenge towards
improving the overall wellbeing of the youth, reduce participation in education and
employment programs and thus increase the risks of staying in poverty.
Inadequate access to education and healthcare: This challenge leads to lack fo education
and increases risks of health problems which further affects their employability and economic
conditions, thus deteriorating their wellbeing.
Discrimination: Discrimination against the youth living in poverty also can restrict their
access to important services such as healthcare and education. Discrimination in work can
prevent them from acquiring jobs and thus is also an important obstacle.
Inadequate resources: Lack of resources of individuals and communities results in weaker
support systems for them. This further causes the maintenance of the adverse conditions and
the state of poverty the youth stays in.
Lack of housing: Inadequate housing can additionally reduce access to important
infrastructure that are designed to help them.
Single Parents: Single parents have the highest risk of suffering poverty and youth in such
families of suffer because of the lack of resources.
Domestic violence: This is another factor that can reduce participation of the youth in
education and employment programs, increase risks of mental health problems and reduce the
chances of employment.

7STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
Social Exclusion: This is another factor that prevents access of the youth from equal access
to education and healthcare, thus reducing their wellbeing.
Delinquent Behaviour: Delinquency among the youth can lead to incarcerations and loss of
employment opportunities. It can also increase deviancy and reduce participation.
(Bryan et al., 2017)
Conclusion
Poverty is a condition where people lack adequate possession, money or resources as
well as power, socio economic status, equal opportunities in healthcare and education.
Poverty has several adverse effects on the health and wellbeing of people and also adversely
affects the society. Youth poverty is a significant problem in Australia and over the years the
poverty rates in Australia is on a rising trend. By studying the background/context of this
social issue, it was identified that to reduce poverty, the education and employability of the
youth needs to be improved as well as access to healthcare. For the short term goals arts can
be used to influence a social change, while for long term goals a parallel systems approach
can be used. However, there still are significant obstacles that need to be overcome to address
the problem.

8STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGES
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