Monthly Archive for February, 2008

February 2008 – Fa’amatuainu Wayne Poutoa

Published by Wayne Poutoa on February 19, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments
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What a month it has been preparing proposals, fine tuning programmes, assisting the youth committee of Streets Ahead 237 and participating in our own version of Pasifika known as Creekfest. As I write this we have visitors from Taumaranui who are interested in how the project began. This interest has now extended to Napier, Hastings and Auckland.

Thanks to the Vodafone Foundation for the awesome technology that we have. I have to say that the biggest project I have is creating the respite care service that we so desperately need. This has taken most of my time in addition to patrolling our streets on Thursday – Saturday from 1am – 4am.

Maraeroa Marae Health Clinic where I work has been full on and we are seeing the fruits of our work in the community benefit the people we serve. The support from clinic staff has ensured that I am able to focus on what needs to be achieved for our youth. Apart from being a great relief Maraeroa Marae Health Clinic now pays our youth coordinator to design and implement the project allowing me to get on with the big picture.

Thanks to Annette for providing some good contacts with the philanthropic sector and especially funding our places for the upcoming Involve 08 conference here in Wellington.

I just finished viewing Swanies You Tube Video which was awesome to see the work done by Canopy. Well done Swanie. Hope you get to view our project which is also on You Tube. It is titled Streets Ahead 237 and comes in two parts this will give you a good idea of what the programme is all about.

I am currently working on a proposal as mentioned above with our local Mayor, Councillors and the Honourable Winnie Laban which has been a lengthy process. This has been good for me to learn what is required to secure a better future for youth in Porirua.

I think Im getting a handle on how the system works but more importantly on how to make agencies responsive towards our pursuit of well being for youth at risk.

I hope you are all well and I look forward to seeing all of you at Nicoles get together scheduled for late March.

February 2008 – Veronica Marwitz

Published by Veronica Marwitz on February 19, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments
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This month has been a bit of a slog finishing of the literature review I am doing – don’t get me wrong I have enjoyed doing it but it has been a much bigger piece of work than I anticipated!

There is a huge body of literature around sexual violence prevention and young people- programmes, theories and prevalence and bringing it together in a cohesive way has taxed my brain! I am very happy to say I on the home stretch!
Delivery of the BodySafe programme has begun for the year and I have been doing some delivery which I haven’t done for a while- it was great getting back out working with young people with the enjoyment and challenges that they bring.
There have been some exciting things happening here at RPE with a new BodySafe Team Leader, Kerri, being employed This position has become available due to my shifiting into programme development and Kylie (who I was previously job-sharing the management with) moving into professional education Kerri is enthusiastic and experienced and I am sure will bring great things to the programme.
I attended a seminar yesterday delivered by the Chemistry Unit Chief of the FBI Lab. He was talking about the challenges of drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) – it was a very interesting seminar He talked about each of the common classes of drugs used in DFSA, the effects they have and how labs and police detect the prescence of drugs I guess a lot of people think of people dropping pills in drinks when they think of DFSA But the reality is that alcohol is the most commonly used drug in DFSA – say someone offers someone a vodka- they expect a single shot but are given a triple shot (probably several times) in order to get them incapacitated so they can more readily take advantage of them sexually.

And then off course a person can knowingly consume alcohol and then be sexually violated and this is categorised as DFSA This stuff just reinforces that we should always know where our drinks are and not to accept drinks from people we don’t know well- go to the bar and get them of the bartender! Oh and that we should look out for our friends! Ok that is enough of me putting my education hat on- I can’t help myself!

Only two weeks to go ’till I head of to Australia! Yay! Will have lots to report next month!

February 2008 – Swanie Nelson

Published by Swanie Nelson on February 17, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments
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Man it’s been a busy az month but awesome! This month saw us launch our first drop in nights for the year at the local library in Clover Park and it was off the hook!!! The ideal would be able to facilitate this on a daily basis however due to lack of funding and also the need for our own premises in Cloverpark (which we are searching for) we will only be able to deliver these every fortnight on a Thursday night.

In light of the recent events in Cloverpark I believe it is something very much needed – that is a safe place for young people to come hang out, have their skills nurtured and opportunities given to them to make use of those skills and talents. Cloverpark/ Flatbush has so many talented youth, you just wouldn’t believe it!

We have also finally moved into a new temporary office in Manukau City 2 minutes from Flatbush and it’s been good having a place to work from, it’s made life a lot easier. I’ve been doing a lot of planning around leadership for our local young people and have identified ten young potential leaders in our community who we will be working with this year.

They all come from different backgrounds but all live locally. One was doing nothing, two are on a course, another has just finished college and is working part time this year while hoping to find out what he would like to do, and the rest are still at college. They all in their own right have leadership skills that we are looking forward to working with them this year to foster.

This team of young people will be involved in the discussions and planning around our drop in nights, meetings and other various events that CANOPY Trust will be involved in this year that directly impact youth. We have also been invited to bring a group of young people to New York in the last school holidays of the year to participate in the”Perform the World” international Conference. This is a huge and exciting opportunity that we are committed to making happen for these young people.

As well as taking them out of the box, expanding their horizons I truly believe that this will be an invaluable experience that will sit with them for a very long time as well as motivate them to see that anything is possible. They will have the opportunity to learn in a rich setting of learning with other young people from all over the world, have the opportunity to deliver a workshop which we aim to base around the multi-cultural diversity of people within not only South Auckland but New Zealand through cultural performance as well as showcasing the issues that they face as youth living in South Auckland and how they aim to do their part as young leaders in their community to create a safer community through dance, songs, culture, visual and digital technology.

So it’s been a busy but exciting month and there is a lot of planning to do over the next couple of months but its all worth it!

January 2008 – Swanie Nelson

Published by Swanie Nelson on February 17, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments
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My start of the New Year with the Vodafone NZ Foundation has been pretty full on with exciting changes within the given trust I am working for.

Preparation work
In my new role as the Executive Director for CANOPY Trust I’ve been working hard to cement vital foundations into the operations, management and delivery of programmes and resources to our young people. I’ve been working on Policies and Procedures as well as a Code of Conduct for our staff. We’ve got 2 new board members who bring a lot of knowledge and experience to the trust and we will be looking for more staff soon. It’s been super busy but exciting and if all goes well and according to plan our young people in Flatbush/Cloverpark and within the surrounding areas will have their very own Youth Resource/Drop Centre by mid to late this year for the young people of Flatbush/Cloverpark. Thanks to Vodafone I purchased a new Video & digital Camera to take footage of CANOPY Trusts progress, events, and programmes.
Planning and Networking
Planning for the year ahead has been a challenging but super exciting! Just three weeks ago in the period of a week we had 3 stabbings and a gun battle between rival youth gangs in our area. As a result it has brought the community even closer together to finding solutions for a safer community. As a result I spent some time putting together a letter to local businesses to get on board and partner with CANOPY Trust in bringing this Youth Centre to fruition for our local young people. The response so far has been awesome and I’m now currently in the process of meeting with some local businesses to talk more about providing opportunities for our young people to fulfil their potential together. I also recently partnered to deliver at ICT leadership programme for young people in Flatbush which will commence mid February. My primary goal for the year is the implementation of a Youth Resource Centre in the Flatbush/Cloverpark area. Once we have this we will be able to facilitate our programmes we were running last year from different facilities under one roof and so much more. We have found the perfect property to facilitate our programmes and provide a drop in centre for our young people and it just comes down to securing enough funding for our lease. As always it’s only money holding us back now but I’m working hard on that. Until we have our own facility to use we will continue to run our drop in nights at our awesome local Library “Tupu” (which start back next month ) as well as our Absolute Rush programmes at the Otara Music and Arts Centre. I have also begun networking with various charitable, community, and corporate organizations. I’ve also come back from visiting a Youth Centre called “Da Bomb Shelter” in Rotorua who are doing awesome work for the young people of Rotorua as well as the local community and have definitely inspired me and given me good food for thought to making something like that happen for our young people up here.
Till then I have sooooo much to do! But incrementally I know we’ll get there

Catch you up on the next update!

February 2008 – Billy Graham’s Update

Published by Billy Graham on February 12, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments
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The start of our year began at the AMP show in the Wairarapa with an outdoor boxing tournament. The weather was fantastic, the environment great, and we even stopped the legendary rugby player’ Colin Meades in his tracks who watched our boys perform.

Most boxing gyms in NZ don’t start up until March, but we put a small notice in the Hutt News that we would be starting back at our academy in February and were inundated with all sorts of kids from all sorts of countries; Somalia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Samoa, Sudan, a few Maori boys, and a few honkies. All in all we’ve got about 80 kids, sometimes more, that come over the four nights. There’s a lot of talent in these boys and they are really, really keen.

It was quite a shock to see how fast some of these lads have grown over the holiday season and they were biting at the bit to get going. It was really encouraging to see that these kids were smiling and dying to get into it, surprising considering how hard they are worked at the gym. This is a hard discipline sport and for some it’s tougher than others if they’re not physically equipped.

When I first took on this venue I had no idea that it was going to be more than just a boxing gym. The parents get involved; very seldom two of them as they are mostly solo, and they really want us to have the answers for their problems. There are four coaches in our gym who are hand picked and very good in their field. I honestly don’t know what I would be doing this year if it wasn’t for the support of the Vodafone World of Difference programme.

The kids that have not come back this year were the ones whose parents split up during the holidays and devastated the kids as this was their place of refuge. One of those boys won a NZ title last year and had really turned a corner and has now left the Wellington region. One young fella that we have back that was in serious trouble last year selling drugs and porn, has had a complete reversal and is committed this year. His parents are back together, and it looks like he’s going to hang in – a champion citizen in the making. I’m overjoyed about that result.

It feels great to be back into training and we have a number of championships to look forward to this year.

February 2008 – Annalise Myers

Published by Annalise Myers on February 11, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments
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It’s been a busy month for me; my son turned five which is a big thing for our family. We have survived a Jedi and Princess Star Wars party with 10 five year old boys and one little princess. Kolbie has started school which has been exciting, so now alongside being a working mum, we are all adjusting to tog bags, little readers and 3 o’clock home times. It’s amazing working for an agency that truly acknowledges parenting; I really appreciate their support and flexibility over this time!

This month has been a little mad and full of new possibilities. We have started the Young Mum’s Support Programme, held an open event for young parents on Children’s Day, hosted an Agency Network gathering, received nine new referrals for our social worker and held two team strategic/programme planning process meetings.

While a large portion of my time this month has been supporting staff, this month I have also been working on the ‘big picture’ stuff – creating a clear direction forward for the TPP and a new funding plan for 2009. We started our second strategic planning stage, as well as beginning to formulate a programme logic, and I’ve been focusing on building new relationships with funders.

One of the outcomes from our strategic planning is that we now have strategic objectives which are a valuable tool to build collective understanding of our work with teen parents. These objectives are our new basis for scoping the future direction for the project ‘within or beyond’ the Women’s Centre. Without the Vodafone funding for my role and the expenses to support our Teen Parent Project strategic planning, this vision would be just a pipe dream. Our Manager is taking the idea of scoping this new development to the AWC Governance meeting in March for discussion – so fingers crossed, big changes may be coming!

A special opportunity I had this month was taking part in a meeting with the Tindall Foundation and SKIP National Leaders. Key staff from the Parenting Sector working in partnership with SKIP including Barnados, Plunket, PlayCentre, Tamkai Family Services and myself from the Women’s Centre met with Margaret Tindall and Foundation Manager Trevor Grey to share our experiences of working with parents through our SKIP Programme. It was a privlage to be part of such an amazing gathering, sharing how our agencies value parenting and the different ways we are all working toward enriching the lives of New Zealand families. This is the work I love, being able to transform a collective vision into reality.

February 2008 – Frank Bunce

Published by Frank Bunce on February 10, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments
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Connecting people who care with causes that matter

Well there are plenty of causes that matter but I haven’t done too much in the way of connecting just yet!

Since my start in mid February much of my time has been in set-up mode.

With our foundation’s CEO Janis McArdle I was able to put a real structure in place for my project which has been somewhat of a blank canvas, we knew where we wanted to be, the challenge was how to get there.

I’ve now had some excellent and productive meetings, all the while learning but also being in awe of just how much knowledge and passion there is in the people in this sector.

I have to thank Swanie for being my “guinea pig”, she let me come out to CANOPY to “practice” on her, as well as giving me an insight into the great work she does.

I had the pleasure of seeing her in action during one of her drop-in nights and I came away inspired by just how much it all felt right.

I also had the pleasure of attending a Healing our Spirits hui at the Manurewa Marae, this was a follow up to one held earlier in response to some tragic events in the area during the early part of the year.

There were a number of workshops and working groups set up which I’m looking forward to being involved with.

A lot of people out there care very much about what’s happening in our communities and to our young people and are trying to make a difference, I’m pleased to have joined them and I’m wondering why it took me so long!

February / March 2008 – Louise Roebuck

Published by Louise Roebuck on February 9, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Feb/March has again been very busy at WAVES.
The Nursing clinic is at full capacity and we are sending young people away most days. This is not something that we want to do, but is a reality due to the numbers that are coming through the door.
The WAVES team has presented at a Primary Health Care nurses forum in New Plymouth. This gave Nurses a snapshot of what we are doing at WAVES, and how all the youth development programmes benefit the overall health of young people. The feedback from this forum was tremendous and many nurses wanting to incorporate some parts of WAVES into their general practice. We are getting referrals from GP’’s and from the Emergency Department.
We have now purchased the video camera equipment from the Voadafone money and it has been really successful. We are going to produce a documentary about WAVES and the role we all play. Rob Harley was hosted by the WAVES crew for a morning and he had many great suggestions for our team to follow up with. We are also planning a documentary on Eltham youth in rural Taranaki. This will assist the community to get support for Eltham to set up youth development opportunity in their community and run and supported by locals. We are going to cover some young people that have made some positive changes in their lives and hear from them what WAVES has meant to them.
Our clinical team has also expanded due to the District Health Board supporting the medical side. We have Dr Don McKee for 8 hours per week, a general practitioner, and Paora Joseph, clinical psychologist for a half day a week. Paora is so busy with mild to moderate mental health issues that we have asked to have him for 2 full days per week. He is also providing supervision to the youth peers in his own time and training me in narrative therapy and working with families. This is exciting and a real need. So many of the issues in the young person life are steming from the families. We are finding many of the young people coming in wtih major behavioural issues at home are in re partnered families so we aim to develop some ways of working with these young people more effectively.
I have developed a very good working relationship with our council. The community development team is assisting us with many youth development activities and we have put in a joint funding application to the Ministry of Youth Development to support the youth development programmes at WAVES. Again this is going to make sure that WAVES is sustainable long term
WAVES assisted at a local fun day held in Marfel, one of the areas in New Plymouth with large state housing accommodation and homes with many gang associations. This was a great day with graffiti art, music, hip hop and lots of fun for the entire family.
I have also been networking more with other agencies through out the Taranaki region, myself and the youth peers are presenting at three community events advocating for youth and inviting people to come and see WAVES and what we do.

A highlight has been the recent visit of Alison Taylor from the Voadafone board, she came and met the WAVES team and was also here when Stevie Chadwick, Associate Minister of Health came and and looked though WAVES.It was a great chance for them to see the many services and supports that we are providing. Their words of support was encouraging for the entire team at WAVES. I would like to purchase a laptop and get medtech installed so that I can do homevisits without having to rewrite notes once I return to WAVES.

February 2008 – Nicole Robertson

Published by Nicole Robertson on February 8, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

This first month has flown by as I have been caught up in the invigorating determination of those working with young people in the Wild West. The West Auckland community is focusing on problems experiences by youth in the area and agencies working collaboratively to develop services that provide opportunities for young people to reach their potential.

To put it briefly, with my Vodafone funding (thanks again!) I am developing a programme for adolescent girls and their parent(s) who have a shared experienced of sexual abuse. I am interested in understanding the effects of abuse on the family relationships and the development of robust family strategies to prevent ongoing risk of abuse for young people.

This month, I have been attending as many interagency forums as possible to present the aims of the WATCS Adolescent Resilience Programme and receive feedback. The response has been very positive; many professionals working in the youth sector are aware of the wide ranging effects of sexual abuse on adolescents and high risk of continued abuse for young women following the initial incident. When a parent also has experienced abuse the risk becomes higher. Talking with colleagues from Adolescent Mental Health Services, Youth Aid, Drug and Alcohol Services and WATCS has assisted me to begin fine tuning the outcomes of the programme.

I meet with 10 young people and their families each week; these families continue to broaden my understanding of resilience and the feedback that I receive from families underpins the development of the programme. I am researching overseas programmes and outcomes, looking at the recommendations in the literature and collecting data on the number of clients that come through WATCS door due to abuse experienced by both the parent and their adolescent. I expect next month to be focused on researching the risk factors associated with abuse, the effects on parenting and adolescent development.

February 2008 – Shirley Allan

Published by Shirley Allan on February 8, 2008 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Hey team WoD, it’s Shirls reporting in again with the monthly update J. Phew!!! Proposals, project plans, meetings, training, sponsors, missing emails… these last 4 weeks have definately felt a lot more like real ‘work’!!. The good news of course though is I’m currently in my dream job and while I’ve had a real juggle on my hands trying to get into a solid routine I think I’ve overcome the worst of the transition period.

It’s funny… initially a year sounds like a lifetime; HEAPS of time, I thought, to get our strategic planning in place with enough left over to ensure the development of a strong business plan and of course, all the quality managements systems that would fall out of it. The key words in that sentence are, ‘I thought’.

That first step has proven the most difficult. We had to cancel our strategic planning session last week due to yet another unforseen circumstance but it’s okay, I’m following a promising lead this week but won’t jinx it by giving away any more… you’ll have to come back next month to see how we’re going on that one okay?

You may also recall I spoke about ’streamlining’ our communications last month. Ha. I can safely say that not all ISP’s are created equal and while things are starting to come right, they’re still very far from satisfactory, however we’re so far in now it would be silly to go back rather than just finish. Who knew the world of IT could be so Shakespearean???

On the project/contract end of the equation we’re doing much better!!!! The brand new look and feel for Smokefree Pacifica Beats is all signed off, the Clendon Youth Awards ran without a hitch (check out some of the pics), the inaugural ASB Polyfest Showcase is on track and we’re beginning to get real traction around local level youth participation events in both Auckland and Porirua.

The trick at this end is most definately maintaining the field level perspective while not losing sight of how it fits into the big picture. Bring on that strategic planning, please J.

Professional development opportunites have also presented themselves nicely this month ; I’ve recently undergone some most excellent governance training and was so inspired that I’ve started to research the wider possibilities for our Board. The even better news is I think I’ve found some funding that will pay for it and have begun exploring opportunities around some mentoring and management support to help me with that ‘big picture’ vs ‘here and now stuff’.

All in all it’s been a pretty full on four weeks and the ones coming look just as busy with a trip down to Wellington booked and my calendar filling up fast. There’s also a couple of abstracts to sort out, an expression of interest to prepare and of course a planning session to finalise… wish me luck guys, I’ll be back in touch soon with the next installment.