This Resilient Youth: Student Voices Report 2024 summarises findings from free-text survey responses provided by 2,000 primary and 3,500 secondary students attending Australian schools who participated in the Resilience Survey between January 29, 2024, and July 1, 2024. The Resilience Survey is an anonymous, online measure of the wellbeing and resilience of Australian school students, engaging directly with children aged 7 to 18 years with the aim of capturing insights about aspects of their emotional and mental lives and behaviour that may not be otherwise visible to parents, carers, or teachers.
This report complements the Resilient Youth: State of the Nation Report 2024, which summarises findings from the quantitative Resilience Survey data including measures of wellbeing, learning mindset, healthy behaviour, and social environment. This current report uses qualitative research methods to summarise and discuss findings from the free-text survey question students are invited to complete at the conclusion of the survey, which asks: If you could magically do anything, what is the one thing you would do to support the wellbegin of young people?
Analyses of primary and secondary school student responses revealed six key categories of proposed solutions to improve wellbeing: addressing mental health, social health, physical health, school life, cost-of-living concerns, and broader social concerns. This framework demonstrates that young people recognise how individual, social, and broader societal factors influence their wellbeing. Notably, even primary school students showed awareness of complex challenges such as economic pressures and social justice issues, highlighting the need for wellbeing approaches that address both individual and systemic factors.
