Training our newest coordinator, Martin is progressing well. Although he is our third coordinator he will be the first to be trained using the new training process we have developed this year. We are getting much more organised with this with training processes, manuals, evaluations processes etc but I still like to retain an organic element to the training. One of our core values for mentors is they each will have their own style of mentoring, that it’’s not a one size fits all, generic approach. I figure this value should be held with our coordinators. While we are looking for the same outcomes and have some fairly proscribed approaches, especially to screening, I hope each coordinator will develop their own unique approach. I am looking to be surprised! Martin is showing some of his uniqueness already, he has found ways to use our client database that I didn”t think were possible; stretching it to the extent we will modify it to accommodate different ways of working.
Training someone new is always a great opportunity to reflect on what we do, how we do it and most importantly connect back to why we do it that way.
On another note I did an interview on Shine TV, seems like an annual event now. Shine is small (on sky digital) specialised in the Christian market but all publicity is good in my view. It did generate quiet a few inquiries.
While my grand plans for expansion occupy a good deal of my time I like to stay strongly connected to the grassroots work of Big Buddy, meeting the mentors, keeping up with the stories of new boys coming in, existing matches and how they are going. After a day of number crunching budgets and projections it’’s really refreshing to touch back into the heart of my work, talking to the many people we work with, remembering why I do this work, remembering how simple it really is, people caring for people.
September was a busy month having arrived home from the bush and getting into the full programme. As per usual we had some amazing results with the boys during their time away but the biggest challenge is to get them to stay on the straight once they are home.
Sometimes I feel we are an organisation which takes troubled youth for three months and tries to undo 16 years worth of damage in some cases.
One of our main criteria is that the young person has to have someone who cares about them enough at home, such as a parent or guardian, available for us to work with. There was one young guy recently who WINZ, Police and Cyfs had been trying to find a placement for. He had no family and was living on the street so the agencies searched high and low to find a house and a parent who was willing to take this young man on. They found somewhere but it’s had a huge impact on this young guy’s life and he cannot keep himself out of trouble. He is by far the most challenging kid we’ve had yet. He cried in the bush, he cried before we left the camp, and inside he is just a young boy longing for attention. His biggest fear leaving camp was that he wouldn’t be able to keep himself out of trouble as it’s all he knows. Sure to his word, within three hourse of arriving home he was at it again. It’s a little disappointing but these are some of the things we face, having said that, the other boys continue to make progress.
I have found myself in the midst of paper work and meetings and all the stuff that comes with being the Director and this has pulled me out of the frontline stuff.
Happy Love Your Body Day everybody! I hope you have bought and are wearing your fabulous EDEN LYBD tshirt to show your support for body satisfaction and to celebrate body diversity. To buy a tee go to www.eden.org.nz. You might also want to check out the cover story in this month’s NEXT magazine where Ali Mau (proud EDEN supporter) talks about body image and body satisfaction and models (with yours truly!) EDEN’s fab tshirts. See a couple of behind-the-scenes photos below. September has been all about getting ready for the LYBD event in Aotea Square on October 17th as well as generating as much publicity as possible. EDEN has had some wonderful help from the Auckland University of Technology’s ‘Outside the Square’ pro bono PR team and Sarah Natusch from Vodafone. These women have made EDEN’s Love Your Body Day campaign possible and we are incredibly grateful for their time, energy and skills.
Alongside all this work and the resulting publicity, demand for EDEN’s services has continued to grow. In response to a big gap in services for those living with and supporting somebody with an eating issue, we are pleased to announce a new support group for parents, partners, carers, and friends of someone with an eating difficulty. This group will meet monthly from mid November at EDEN. It will provide a forum for loved ones to share their experiences and feelings, discuss strategies and tools, and hopefully will reduce the sense of isolation that can happen when a person is supporting a loved one with an eating issue. In addition, EDEN’s support group for women struggling with disordered eating is also ongoing and the EDEN counselling service is continuing to attract more people seeking one on one support for their eating issue.
My fundraising goals have been a major priority this month. Of course LYBD is a wonderful fundraising opportunity for EDEN, but as well as this I have completed two new funding applications and had meetings with community advisors from two of the big philanthropic trusts who are currently considering funding applications from EDEN. As yet, the final version of the Ministry of Health’s “Future directions for the care, management, and treatment for service users with Eating Disorders in New Zealand” document has not been released. EDEN remains hopeful that the recommendations made here will include an emphasis on early intervention and that the services that EDEN is already providing and which are currently meeting some of the goals for service delivery, will be supported with a District Health Board contract.
Lastly, EDEN’s annual report and accounts for the period July 06-end of June 07 was finalised in September with massive input from Louise Stokes our admin worker at EDEN. It was a pleasure to write my coordinator’s section and to also reflect on all that we have achieved over the previous 12 months and the large numbers of people EDEN has been able to support, resource and help.
Make sure you check back here next month to see my report on Love Your Body Day and to see some great pictures of our LYBD mural!
September was another busy month for Every Child Counts. On 5 September we hosted our 2nd annual conference and launched the inaugural Every Child Counts Annual Awards. The conference was held in Wellington and brought 100 people together from government and community groups, with a focus on placing children at the centre of policy and planning. Naturally, there were a lot of logistics to manage, as well as media liaison, and ensuring our speakers were well briefed. Speakers included Dr Emma Davies from the Ofcie of the Children’s Commissioner; Bev Adair and Ben Lummis; Lyn Campbell from the Families Commission; Nic Mason from the Institute of Public Policy; Victoria Owen from Local Government NZ; and Lorraine Tarrant from SKIP (Strategies with Kids, Information for Parents).
Two Every Child Counts Awards were presented. The institutional/ organisation award was resented to Parliament in recognition of the passage of the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act. The award was accepted by Parliament’s Speaker, Hon Margaret Wilson, and Deputy Speaker Clem Simich MP. The individual award was presented to Beth Wood, a tireless child advocate.
Following the conference, we had a comprehensive debrief and began preparing for our next conference in September 2008.
We then turned our attention to a range of internal matters needing our attention: our constitutional status; the recruitment of new members for our Steering Group and Project Team; funding applications; preparing a campaign plan for 2008; and identifying what is needed to upgrade our website (with the generous support of the Vodafone mini-World of Difference programme).
In September, we also developed some scripts for radio advertisements about parenting, which highlight the needs of children and advertise Every Child Counts.
Dance, dance, dance! That’s all I can say. It’s been such an exciting month with preparation for our end of the year shows and fundraisers. Our Desire2Dream programme started this month and is now in full flight. It’s a 10 week programme for all ages with three sections; junior, varsity and adult, in which we introduce not only dance skills but character building and participation. It is an event not to be missed and performers look forward to participating in it every year.
We were also lucky enough to have three volunteers from Vodafone through the Vodafone NZ Foundation’s Hands Up programme. Thanks so much to Isaac, Ruth and Soane for their time and expertise helping with funding templates for our dance studio, taking various calls on reception, helping with youth programmes and other odd jobs around our facility. I want to acknowledge their help and contribution to our programme in that short period of time. Big thanks go to Vodafone and the Vodafone NZ Foundation also.
Another highlight for the month was one of our support crews from Dziah Dance Studio, SAS – an up and coming hip hop crew from West Auckland, placing 2nd at the ‘Tear It Up Nationals’. They’re an awesome group of boys who are passionate about dance and wanting to make an impact in West Auckland. Our studio supports them in trying to produce what we have here in South Auckland. Next year we hope to have established a passionate team to start out in West Auckland helping youth at-risk and getting them into something productive rather than destructive. SAS is the new up and coming Dziah so I can’t wait for next year to see them grow.
Building networks along the way has been a big help and we’ve met with a lot of other people with the same passion of building a way forward for our young people. Youth need to be occupied and have options available for them to release positive energy. With SDNZ (Street Dance NZ) we have combined with other dance companies and highly respected dancers to draw top choreographers and dancers from overseas and these are people that youth in our area aspire to be like. Seeing high calibre dancers who perform as back-up dancers for artists like Justin Timberlake, Usher, Missy Elliot and Britney Spears, come to NZ to inspire our youth is just awesome. We’re here to reinforce, encourage and build them up to achieve their dreams. Our job is the middle man in helping youth discover what talents and abilities they have.
