Early this week the Commissioner for Children and Young People (CCYP), Leanne McLean, launched “We call it happy”, a report on the wellbeing of young Tasmanians. The report is a culmination of CCYP’s consultations with more than 400 young Tasmanians and 100 parents and carers from around Tasmania. These face-to-face consultations were funded by the Tasmanian Government as part of the broader consultation program to inform the development of Tasmania’s Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy for 0-25 year olds, which received over 3,500 contributions.

The report provides a sense of what life is like for Tasmanian children and young people up to the age of 18. It identifies key issues that would make life better for young Tasmanians in their communities and in Tasmania more generally, namely:

• more things to do and places to do them
• a more responsive education system
• better access to health care
• more support for families
• greater sense of acceptance, belonging and feeling safe
• better access to material basics, including affordable housing

We thank the CCYP for partnering with the Child and Youth Wellbeing Team to gain the ideas, views and experiences of children, young people and their carers.

The findings from the “We call it happy” report will be collated and presented in a publicly available Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy Consultation Report.

The final Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy is due to be released later this year.