Quo Vadis Australia

Biggins suggests that children are adversely affected by messages through all types of media that impacts their health and wellbeing along with their developing sense of self, and their understanding of where happiness really lies. These messages convey the need for consumerism and have been termed a corporate takeover of childhood. Such messages are often linked to the sexualisation of children and the idea that to be happy I need to have more.

She concludes her article by asking 'is Australia being good to its kids by continuing to allow advertisers and marketers fairly free access to them, and turning a blind eye to the consequences?' That's a question that shouldn't be ignored.

There are many other social researchers writing in this area and agreeing that all is not well for Australia's children and youth as we venture further into the 21^st Century including Michael Carr-Gregg, Hugh Mackay, and Steve Biddulph.

So, in asking the question 'Qou Vadis Australia?' we see that in many ways we are in trouble, especially when it comes to the social environment for children and youth and the ways that our young people are trying to cope with that. Indicators of the social problem include drug abuse, obesity, mental health problems, physical and verbal abuse in bullying, street violence, and in the home, along with a growing sense of social isolation amongst our youth. Blame has been thrown at the Educational system, the Media, and Government policies and lack of funding, to name a few.

Working to Repair the Brokenness

However, the approach to doing something about it needs to be a Community Development one. It does us no good in the long term to be scapegoating for in the end it simply passes the blame around and causes everyone to be sidestepping and looking for the next 'big answer'. A Community Development approach asks the question 'What can I do about this?' 'What can my organization do to address this problem?' And, 'How can we all work together to create a better society and nurture wellbeing?'

When I was a Councillor with the City of Melbourne we started to introduce policies that would lead to Melbourne being accredited as a UNICEF Child Friendly City. That work continues, not only in Melbourne but in many cities across Australia. It is an excellent challenge and works on the principle that if a city is a child friendly city is a city that is friendly for all. The only way to achieve a child friendly status is for everyone, all the City's stakeholders, to work together and to bring all their strengths to the table to overcome the factors that are working against child friendliness and to put into place those factors that will deliver child friendliness. The same is to be said of any initiatives that are designed to work toward social wellbeing. If our social environment is healthy for children and young people it will be healthy for all and it will be of advantage for the future. And, it is the responsibility of all of us.

All of us? Where do we begin? Sophia Think Tank (Bible Society Australia's national think tank on values, priorities, and behaviour in Australian Society) identifies ten drivers in Australian society that are highly influential in the development of that society. These Drivers are

• Media
• Arts
• Business
• Sports
• Community Services
• Health
• Justice
• Law
• Education
• Politics

If we are going to experience sustainable change in our social environment, if the social environment is indeed going to be repaired, all of these Drivers will have a role to play. It is also true that each one of these Drivers have had a role in the decline of the social environment. During the year of 2012, in what we are calling Project 217, Sophia Think Tank is conducting Roundtables with representatives of some of these Drivers to identify and discuss the ways that the Driver has added to the brokenness and what each Driver can do to help begin to repair the brokenness. And then, what are we going to do about that?