Bringing young voices to the decision table

In November 2023, Matilda Centre researchers provided a submission to the New South Wales State Parliamentary Inquiry into e-cigarette regulation and compliance. This submission, available on the NSW Parliamentary website, shares the latest evidence around young people and e-cigarette use, and the importance of school-based interventions to prevent vaping among young people.  

In April 2024, in response to the submission, Matilda Centre Director Professor Maree Teesson and Program Lead in Smoking, Vaping and Mental Health Research, Associate Professor Emily Stockings attended NSW Parliament to answer questions on the submission.

Facing a full Committee on Law and Safety, the Professor Teesson and Associate Professor Stockings called for:

• Robust, evidence-based e-cigarette prevention programs in all NSW schools

• More support for young people in regional/remote areas, lower socio-economic backgrounds, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations

•  Schools to avoid punitive disciplinary measures against students caught vaping, and instead be diverted to educative interventions and professional treatment programs 

• A state-wide youth e-cigarette monitoring program, to better monitor trends in vaping among youth over time

In September 2023, a team of Matilda Centre staff led by Ms Melissa Gray (Project Manager) and Dr Amy-Leigh Rowe (Academic Lead) were successful in their bid to develop the next NSW Health Youth Health policy known as the NSW Strategy for Young People’s Health & Wellbeing 2025+. This new policy will replace the current NSW Youth Health Framework which ends in 2024.  

This policy is for all of NSW Health and aims to ensure 12–24-year-olds are healthy, safe, and well. It is underpinned by three key goals that relate to:  

• improving awareness and understanding about the uniqueness of adolescent and young adult development; 

• improving service delivery for all young people; 

• prioritising care for specific groups of young people who experience multiple challenges that heighten the likelihood of poor health and wellbeing.  

This is an exciting opportunity for high quality research and consultation to drive policy development. The team are entering their second of three consultation stages, having already conducted interviews and focus groups with 60 young people including 30 from priority populations, as well as 40 NSW Health staff. At this next stage they will broaden their reach, including travelling to rural NSW to ensure the voices of various communities are heard.

Project team members include Melissa Gray, Dr Amy-Leigh Rowe, Camilla Sedgwick, Anna Grager, Professor Maree Teesson, Professor Nicola Newton, Paul Newman, Craig Seinor-Davies, Dr Lauren Gardner, Dr Katrina Prior, Dr Jack Wilson, and Dr Amelia Henry.

In April 2024, Associate Professor Emily Stockings and Matilda Centre Youth Advisory Board Member, Conor Hinds, joined Minister for Education, Jason Clare MP, and Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler MP, to address the media on the research benefits of evidence-based programs such as the OurFutures program.  

Associate Professor Stockings shared what fifteen years of research into substance use has shown and how this can be applied to young people’s vape use, including best practice prevention and early intervention strategies for young people experimenting with drugs.  

“Saying to kids, 'drugs are bad' is not going to work. What we need is a toolkit of skills that we can impart to young people. We give them the knowledge, we give them the assertiveness and confidence and resistance to say no or to know how to ask for help if their friends are using substances.” – Associate Professor Emily Stockings at the Press Conference in Sydney

Joining Associate Professor Stockings was Conor Hinds, a provisional psychologist and member of the Matilda Centre Youth Advisory Board, to share the value of listening to and engaging with young people when making policy about young people.  

“At the Youth Advisory Board, we champion the concept of 'nothing about us without us', ensuring feedback and input from young people is integrated into the interventions which affect them.” – Conor Hinds at the Press Conference in Sydney

Across the first quarter of 2024, Matilda Centre researchers worked to submit to the Victorian Inquiry into vaping and tobacco controls, taking their research on vaping habits in young people and school-based interventions and applying it to the Victorian context.   

The submission continued to call for:

• Investment in vaping prevention programs with robust evidence of effectiveness
• Support for targeted research among young people from regional/remote areas, lower socio-economic backgrounds, and those who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
• Schools to avoid punitive disciplinary measures against students caught vaping, diverting instead to educative interventions and professional treatment programs
• Investment in a state-wide youth vape monitoring program

We look forward to answering any questions about the OurFutures Vaping prevention program and the importance of evidence-based approaches to supporting young people in Victoria as the Inquiry continues.   

In May 2024, Matilda Centre Director Professor Maree Teesson and Program Lead of Smoking, Vaping and Mental Health Research Associate Professor Emily Stockings were invited to present evidence to the Federal Senate Inquiry around vaping habits and harm minimisation for young people.  

Professor Teesson and Associate Professor Stockings shared expertise on helping Australians stop smoking, preventing young people taking up vaping, the value of school-based interventions to help prevent or stop vaping, and the value of social media as an influencer in public health. 

In May 2024, staff from the NSW Minister for Mental Health and Youth, Rose Jackson MP, visited the Matilda Centre to meet with the Matilda Centre Youth Advisory Board. The team met to learn more about youth co-design and listen to young people’s perspectives on mental health in the state.  

The Youth Advisory Board are a group of 13 young Australians aged 16-25 from diverse backgrounds across Australia. They bring an expertise and interest in mental health and substance use. With feedback on what it is like living in regional and rural areas, culturally and linguistically diverse experiences, living with and working in mental health and substance use spaces, the Board have wide experiences that are useful for further integration and support for young people and how to help them live better, healthier futures.