Ministerial Youth Advisory Group

The Ministerial Youth Advisory Group (MYAG) gives advice to the Minister for Children about experiences of the child protection and care systems.

The main task of members is to give advice to the minister about:

• the different experiences that young people have of the child protection and care systems
• what works well in the child protection and care systems and what could be improved.

MYAG is made up of a minimum of 12 members and a maximum of 15 members who:

• are between 15 and 25 years old
• have current or recent experience living away from their families in the Victorian care system.

This includes experiences living in foster care, kinship care and residential care settings.

MYAG has two co-chairs who are the Minister for Children and a member of the group.

The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (the department) provides secretariat support for MYAG. This means that a team at the department help to organise and prepare members for meetings.

If you apply you will need to be able to:

• attend and participate in up to four MYAG meetings per year, as well as a pre-briefing meeting before each MYAG meeting.
• give advice to the Minister for Children and the department about how the child protection and care systems can be improved.

give advice about the diverse experiences that young people have of the child protection and care systems

The criteria to join MYAG are that members:

• have current or recent experience living away from their families in the Victorian care system, and

• are aged between 15 and 25 years.

Members will be selected to reflect the diversity of the community with consideration to:

• lived experience of all care types (residential, foster and kinship care)

• First Nations communities

• culturally and linguistically diverse people

• people with disability

• people living in regional and rural Victoria

• LGBTIQIA+ communities.

You will need to register an account on the Join a Public Board website (www.boards.vic.gov.au) before applying online, if you need help with this process, please contact Lauren Brain in the MYAG Secretariat team at MYAG@dffh.vic.gov.au; 0459 483 524.

Before applying, please read all of the documents attached on this page including:

• MYAG Terms of Reference (ToR)
• MYAG co-chair position description
• MYAG member position description
• MYAG payment schedule
• MYAG self-reflection questions

You will be asked to upload a current CV (which is a history of the jobs and any relevant experiences you’ve had, such as education, volunteering or leadership) and a ‘cover letter’. When we say ‘cover letter’ which is where you can tell us a bit more about yourself and why you are interested to join MYAG.

Your cover letter should include answers to all these questions so that the department can understand more about your interest in this role:

• What do you think are your biggest strengths, skills, things that you like doing or are good at doing? These could be anything! You may be good at listening to others, sharing your experiences, coming up with ideas, public speaking or being empathetic.
• If you could change anything about the child protection and care systems, what would you change and why?
• Why would joining MYAG be a great opportunity for you? What kinds of things would you like to learn about as part of MYAG?

If you are interested in applying for the role of co-chair we would also like you to answer these questions:

• Do you have any interest in, or experience in, leadership? Can you tell us about a time you have been a leader for other people and what that looked like?
• How do you help other people feel comfortable to speak up and share their opinions in big groups of people?

You can contact the MYAG secretariat at ChildrenandFamiliesEngagement@dffh.vic.gov.au and we can talk through these questions with you over the phone either one-on-one or with a support person.