Report

Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy Annual Report (2020/2021)

This 2020/21 Annual Report is the first statutory report under the legislation.  Last year a voluntary Annual Report for the 2019/20 year was published, which established baseline data for 21 of the Strategy’s 36 child and youth wellbeing indicators.

The Annual Report includes specific information on outcomes for Māori and Pacific children and young people, and for other population groups where data is available.  It also includes progress updates on key actions in the Strategy’s Programme of Action.

Key points include:

  • The child and youth wellbeing indicators in the Annual Report show that the majority of children and young people continue to do well across most outcome areas.
  • They also show that disparities persist for many groups, in particular Māori, Pasifika, rainbow and disabled children and young people. Many of these disparities reflect the long-term impacts of racism, discrimination and intergenerational disadvantage.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic continued to disrupt the lives and wellbeing of children and young people, their whānau and communities. For some children and young people, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to be extensive and long-lasting.
  • Despite the profound impacts of COVID-19 on society and the economy, we’ve seen a downward trend in child poverty across all nine measures, meaning tens of thousands fewer children are living in poverty now compared to three years ago.
  • As part of the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy, there has been significant long-term investment in the wellbeing of our children, young people and their whānau, as well as mitigating the immediate health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19.  
  • A range of actions have also been introduced to address the long-term inequities in outcomes for children and young people in general, and between population groups experiencing disadvantage.

The Annual Report draws on wellbeing data collated from 16 collections across seven government agencies for the 2020/21 financial year, including administrative and survey data. The new Youth Health and Wellbeing Survey (Whataboutme?), was intended to be the primary data source in the 2020/21 Annual Report for 15 of the wellbeing indicators. However, COVID-19 has caused significant delays to its completion which means that the final datasets are not yet available. Supplementary data sources have been used, where possible, to provide a snapshot of how children and young people are doing in certain areas.

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