Youth Engagement Project

Youth Engagement Project YEP has a vision to transform the landscape of youth engagement. How do we do that? www.youthengagementproject.com

We empower educators, organisations and speakers to unleash their influence, engage audiences and drive meaningful change. Youth Engagement Project is a not-for-profit organisation that provides training and support for those who work with young people, including teachers, schools, outdoor educators, youth engagement officers, youth organisations, councils, and government departments. We are on a

mission to transform the landscape of youth engagement, as our young people deserve to have those who support them at their best. Our vision is a youth landscape where young people are inspired to take ownership of their lives, are confident in who they are, and face a flourishing future.

One third of teaching time in Australia is lost to student behaviour. That’s not a headline exaggeration - it’s what a n...
08/09/2026

One third of teaching time in Australia is lost to student behaviour. That’s not a headline exaggeration - it’s what a national report of nearly 400 teachers just found.

A lot of the conversation since has focused on discussing consequences, discipline, and classroom management training. This might be useful - but it’s not what the literature is guiding us toward.

Underneath the data, the research points us in another direction. Disruptive behaviour is strongly linked to a lack of trust between students and teachers. And telling a room to calm down doesn’t work when the adult in front of them is overwhelmed and dysregulated too.

This isn’t a discipline problem. It’s a connection problem, at scale.

Swipe through 5 key insights from the report - and what the research says we’re missing.

We’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on this one 💭

We’ve done the heavy lifting and read the journal articles so you don’t have to. No more guesswork - come and learn the ...
27/08/2026

We’ve done the heavy lifting and read the journal articles so you don’t have to.

No more guesswork - come and learn the tools and research to reliably enhance engagement, connection and trust in your space 💌

Melbourne - October 12
Sydney - October 26

Links in bio 🚀

There’s so much we wish young people knew - not because they’re missing something, but because the world around them doe...
27/08/2026

There’s so much we wish young people knew - not because they’re missing something, but because the world around them doesn’t always make it easy to see 👀

What have we missed?

Share your thoughts in the comments - what do you wish young people knew?

Working with young people is a mix of deeply moving and completely unhinged - depending on the day. Take the reminder th...
24/08/2026

Working with young people is a mix of deeply moving and completely unhinged - depending on the day.

Take the reminder that’s right for you 💌

23/08/2026

Engagement isn’t just about what you say. It’s about how you lead, how you listen, and how you make them feel 🚀

Strategies and tools matter - but young people respond to something underneath all of that first.

The safety you create. The tone you set. The energy you bring before you’ve said a single word.

We’ve spent years unpacking what actually sits behind that feeling - the invisible layer that either invites a young person in, or quietly pushes them out. And once you understand it, you can build it on purpose, in any room, with any group.

That’s exactly what we’re unpacking at our upcoming workshops - the real fundamentals of engagement, and why so many outdated strategies have stopped landing with Gen Z.

📍 Melbourne - 12th October
📍 Sydney - 26th October

Link in bio to book your spot 🚀

Why do we care so much about consulting projects and curriculum design?A lot of the content being delivered to young peo...
19/08/2026

Why do we care so much about consulting projects and curriculum design?

A lot of the content being delivered to young people right now was written for a completely different generation 👀

Same slides. Same activities. Same script - delivered to a room that’s changed entirely.

This is a big part of what we do behind the scenes. Organisations bring us their existing content, and we pull it apart. Not to throw it out - to find what still lands, and rebuild the rest for who’s in the room today.

Because content that was engaging in 2016 isn’t automatically engaging in 2026. Language shifts. Attention shifts. What builds trust with young people shifts. If the content hasn’t shifted with it, it’s not that it’s wrong - it’s just quietly falling flat, and no one’s quite sure why.

So… we get curious. We ask what the content is really trying to achieve, strip back what’s outdated, and rebuild it to actually land with who young people are today.

If your content hasn’t been touched in a while, it doesn’t mean it needs throwing out - but it might need an update 🚀

Curiosity is a connection superpower 🚀 A curious question does something a statement never can. It hands the floor to a ...
18/08/2026

Curiosity is a connection superpower 🚀

A curious question does something a statement never can. It hands the floor to a teenager, without making them feel like they’re being interviewed, corrected, or checked up on.

Good questions aren’t about getting information. They’re about showing a young person that you’re genuinely interested in their world…

Here are 30 questions that build connection instead of small talk. Some are playful. Some are reflective.

All of them say the same thing: I want to know you, I want to connect.

Save this for your next car ride, dinner, or comfortable silence that needs filling 💛

If control worked, we wouldn’t need this conversation about connection.We wouldn’t be searching for better ways to reach...
17/08/2026

If control worked, we wouldn’t need this conversation about connection.

We wouldn’t be searching for better ways to reach young people. We wouldn’t be seeing more disconnection (not less), after decades of trying to manage behaviour instead of understand it.

Control can get you a quiet room. It can get you compliance, obedience, a moment of order.

But it stops working the second you leave the room - because it was never building anything. It was just holding something back.

Connection does something different 💛

It doesn’t just change what a young person does in front of you. It changes how they see themselves, what they believe they’re capable of, and who they become when no one’s watching at all.

That’s the difference. And it’s the whole reason we do this work.

If you’d like to understand more about building connection with young people, join us at an upcoming workshop - links in bio 💛

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Melbourne, VIC

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