Moreton Bay Regional Council: Community Development Officer, Young People

Task 1: Emails for Community Development Officer, Young People

Read through the following emails (taking note of who the sender and receiver are) to get context that will help
you understand the task.

Email #1:

Sender You

Recipient Your manager

Subject Engagement session idea

Good morning!

I want to hold an engagement session with a youth panel in the next couple of weeks. I’ve
been getting a number of emails over the past month or two and a theme is emerging: that
many in the community believe our youth aren’t spending their time very wisely.

I’m going to forward you all of the emails, but to summarise:

● The Chamber of Commerce wants more youth to get to work.
● A high school principal is worried about the amount of time students spend gaming.
● A police officer mentioned that young people are complaining that there isn’t much to
do.
● A sports centre director has seen youth participation rates plummet.

All of them seem willing to get involved and help, but before we rush to answers, I want to
hear from a panel of young people to really understand how they feel. What do you think? Any
reason not to?

Let me know, thanks!

Email #2:

Sender Chamber of Commerce

Recipient You

Subject Staffing challenges, can you help?

Hi,

It has been a while since we spoke, I’m terrible at keeping in touch! And apologies I didn’t
respond to your last email. I promise I’ll do better going forward!

I met with a number of local business leaders over the last month or so and I’m spotting a
worrying trend. Most of them, particularly those in retail and hospitality, are really struggling to
hire enough people to run their operations. As I’ve dug deeper into it, I’ve realised that most of
the positions that they are struggling to fill are those typically staffed by high school students
 and recent graduates.

I read this story about how youth unemployment is low, but we aren’t seeing that translate into
jobs being filled. I suppose it is because many of our students just aren’t looking for work
these days?

Anyway, we have a busy period coming up, so really need to encourage more young people
to join the workforce. Is this something you can help with? I’d love to discuss the problem with
you in more detail and see how we can address it!

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Marlene

Email #3:

Sender High School Principal

Recipient You

Subject Concerned for our young people

Hey, quick note — I’m sure you’ve thought about this topic in the past, but I read this article
the other day and can’t get it off my mind… as both a parent and a school principal I worry
about the amount of time kids are spending on video games these days. I thought it was an
issue primarily because gaming takes time from other activities, but after reading that article I
am worried for their mental and emotional state. I’ve heard that some of our students are
playing video games for 6+ hours a day! Is there something we can do to help them
understand the dangers or at least show them that there are other things they can do with
their time? Can we discuss when we meet for lunch next week?

Email #4:

Sender Police Officer

Recipient You

Subject Programs for youth?

Hello,

I wanted to send you a quick note — I’m getting complaints of some high-school-aged youth
hanging around all afternoon and into the evening on the north side of town. Actually, I’ve
been noticing groups hanging out a lot in the last year or so. I went to see what had been
going on and the kids aren’t doing anything wrong, but the neighbours are a little bothered
that they are always around outside their homes.

Anyway, I had a fun chat with the group and they are telling me there isn’t much else to do but
hang out with their friends and chat. I asked them if they would go to the parks instead (as a
courtesy to the neighbours), but I am a little curious about the “nothing else to do” comment. I
 am sure this isn’t the case; I grew up here, and I feel like there were always things to do…

Figured I’d reach out and offer to help in any way I can to create things to do and/or to help
the youth learn about what is already going on. Please let me know how I can assist.

Thanks,
Officer Jones

Email #5

Sender Sports Centre Director

Recipient You

Subject Youth sport participation rates

Good morning,

Great to meet you last week, always nice to chat to a friendly face while waiting for coffee!

As we discussed, since COVID, our youth sports participation rates have declined
considerably. I need your help to figure out how we can get more youth involved. I’ve noticed
this across ability levels, sports and age groups. As an example, last month we tried to drive
participation for our swimming club (which always used to have a waiting list), but only
managed to fill half of the available places in the program!

I’d love to discuss this more with you. As I’m sure you will agree, sport is such a great thing for
young people to be involved in, for many reasons. I worry that the youth are likely cooped up
inside playing video games and are missing out on critical development skills like team
building, leadership, etc., while also missing the health benefits that come from our sports
programs. I am also concerned about the viability of my sports centre, which is struggling to
recover from the COVID pandemic. Getting the youth back is my top priority!

Can we discuss?
John M.

Email #6:

Sender Your manager

Recipient You

Subject re: Engagement session idea

Thanks for sharing the emails with me and for sending your summary. I am really glad that
there are so many stakeholders interested in helping out. It would be great to bring some of
them together, but you are right… first step should be to listen to the young people
themselves, so I am very supportive of a youth engagement session focused on this topic.
Can you set it up? Please put together a quick plan using the Engagement Planning
Template, send it back to me, and we can go from there.

Thank you!