Tauranga City Council is looking at a new way of engaging with young people interested in local government.

The Community Development Committee is recommending TCC adopt the Tauranga Moana Rangatahi Youth Engagement Plan, which sets the council to actively engaging with young people interested in the political process.

Tauranga City councillor Steve Morris is encouraging youth into local government processes. Photo: File

The initiative follows a series of workshops earlier in the year where young people were polled on whether they wanted to be involved, how they though that would take place and what council can do about it.

The focus groups discovered the best way of dealing with the city's youth was through purposeful, respectful interactions where their feedback is actually considered and responded to with meaningful outcomes.

'There are youth out there who do want to participate in council,” says committee chairman Steve Morris.

'Not everybody will want to, in fact most won't. It's a bit like society in general.

'The key thing that came across was, whatever you do don't patronize the youth who are wanting to take part.

'That's something I agree with. We are talking about young adults here who have got an interest in council, have got an interest in their community and we just need to respect them and their opinions.”

The young people council staff spoke with preferred the idea of a youth advisory group or similar over a youth council. This is due to an advisory group being considered less formal and less demanding.

It would also give young people from all sectors of the community the chance to be involved in discussions around civic projects, rather than the same select few.

Unexpectedly for council, the representatives of the 18,000 youth in Tauranga, or 15 per cent of the community, prefers face to face contact to social media.

Council is looking at forming a youth advisory group, similar to the elders' forum, and the disability advisory group. They are groups the council consults with during the gestation phases of policy development, says Steve.

There are also schools that want to hear from councillors on an individual basis. Council will also be encouraging schools to attend relevant committee meetings and encourage youth to present to Elected Members on matters of interest to youth.

Ultimately, council wants to work with Tauranga's intermediate and secondary schools by attending at least two assemblies a year to deliver an overview of current projects and also asking for feedback from the students.

'Whether that's through school assemblies or visiting them where they are, so that's positive,” says Steve.

'So there are young people that do have an interest and we need to make sure we are communicating with them because they are our future leaders.”