Ms Chandler was one of three guests at at Q and A for youth week hosted by Dubbo Regional Council youth development officer Rebecca McMahon. She was also joined by Lucy Gleeson, who discussed climate change and Ngaire Bigwood who spoke about mental health.

The three areas of discussion were highlighted by youth in Dubbo as the greatest issues for the region.

Speaking at the Q and A, Ms Chandler, an Indidg Connect mentor, identified attitudes and technology as two of the biggest barriers to work.

ALSO MAKING NEWS:

"Some of the challenges we face for employment in youth is that people aren't willing to make a plan and start at the bottom. We have a lot of people who have high expectations on what they're going to do or receive for their employment. They're not understanding it's a give and a take," she said.

"Also late nights, PlayStations, phones, they really impact on people's employment. If you cannot disconnect from your device, you're not going to be able to connect with any employment. We really need to get to a point where young people are able to disconnect from their device.

"That doesn't meet you sit it down and you're constantly thinking about it, it means you actually disconnect from it."

She also encouraged young people not to get caught up with finding out "what they want to be".

Ms Gleeson said not everyone needed a job where they were saving the world, sometimes it was about making sure the employee could still do what they wanted to do at the end of the day or weekends.

When it came to the discussion on climate change, Ms Gleeson said one of the biggest issues right now was COVID-19.

"We want to keep it in our minds and the issue alive to make sure that it's still there when the pandemic's over. When the pandemic's over, climate change is still going to be happening," she said.

The activist said she first learnt about the issue in science class at around Year 8.

"I just remember being gobsmacked by it and how we had taken so little action on the issue," Ms Gleeson said.

For Ms Bigwood, she said a big concern within the mental health space was the difficulty youths often had in asking for help.

"As adults we can get caught up in the stresses of our own lives and disregard the cries for help or we tend to have an attitude of 'what possible problems can the youth be dealing with that's so bad?' rather than just listening and acknowledging what they are going through," she said.