the Y7-10 Project Report (225kb) the Y7-10 Project Report with appendices (399kb) the Y7-10 Project appendices (176kb) Note: some of the links on this page are Acrobat pdf files. These are best viewed with Acrobat Reader 4.0 or later. You can download a free copy of Acrobat Reader

Introduction

Y7-10 children form a distinctive group - between childhood and adulthood with rapidly changing growth and development phases. Their attitudes are changing as they grow and develop socially, mentally, physically and spiritually. For their parents, teachers and caregivers Y7-10s can be very challenging. It is therefore important that the Christchurch City Council understands the special needs of this group in order to plan from an informed knowledge base.

While in-depth research has been done on issues to do with children and youth in Christchurch, there appear to be gaps in our understanding and knowledge as to what is happening and what needs to be done for children in the Y7-10 group. This project is an awareness-raising exercise - a starting point from which (it is hoped) further action can be taken. We have attempted to answer three key questions:

• What research exists already and what does it tell us?
• Who is catering for this specific group? (What, when and where?)
• What are the gaps in service provision - and how can we fill them?

Over 100 service providers in Christchurch have been surveyed to help us answer these questions. The exercise has proved to be both enlightening and constructive. We found wide consensus on many issues to do with Y7-10s, and were pleasantly surprised at the level of response. This document summarises the main themes that came out of the survey, and summarises highlights of some of the relevant literature available on Y7-10s.