The report presents research undertaken in the lead-up to the implementation of the Australian Government’s Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024. The paper centres the voices of multicultural and newly arrived young people to examine how the proposed under-16 social media restriction intersects with settlement, belonging, education, wellbeing and access to information.

This report illustrates how the extended lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, and the broader pandemic, have presented significant interruptions to the settlement process, with implications for young people’s longer-term participation and wellbeing.

The Community Conversations project was created to gather further information on the nature of economic exclusion among refugee and migrant communities in Melbourne’s west, and to source community-informed ideas for reducing barriers to participation.

During the March-April 2020 lockdown period, the Centre for Multicultural Youth (CMY) interviewed 41 young people from 17 different cultural backgrounds, connected with their 'Employment Empowers' program. The findings outlined in this report provide a snapshot of the experiences of young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds at this time.

This research takes a look back on the settlement experiences of young Victorians who arrived in Australia in the preceding five to ten years. Using the National Youth Settlement Framework as a guide, this paper explores a range of indicators to examine the settlement outcomes of young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds in Victoria.