History
In May 2001 a group of five Youth Workers from around the country
facilitated by John Harrington the Co ordinator of the Canterbury Youth
Workers Collective started conference calling to discuss issues facing
Youth Work in Aotearoa.
July 2002 the same group of Youth
Workers met in Wellington with Paul Curry the Manager of the then
Community Development Group of the Department of Internal Afffairs and Anne Carter CEO of the then Ministry of Youth Affairs. The reason for meeting
with Paul and Anne was that the Community Development Group hold
funding for Youth Work through Lottery, the Community Development
Scheme, COGS, and the Youth Work Training Scheme. The Ministry of Youth
Affairs held the policy – the Youth Development Strategy of Aotearoa
which adds weight and support to the practice of Youth Work.
This
meeting was the start of developing the National Youth Workers Network
Aotearoa. We gained support from both Paul and Anne and from this
meeting we were asked to write a discussion paper outlining our aims
and objectives. We then met with them again in November 2002 and
presented our discussion paper. From this meeting we established a
Working Group that was funded to meet with Paul and Anne three times
the next year for the purposes of keeping the discussions going and to
start moving forward with the aims and objectives written.
In
2003 we were given funding to carry out a piece of research on the
state of Youth Work in Aotearoa this was to be titled Real Work. We
were also given some funding to contract a Network Co ordinator to get
out and about the country to engage Youth Worker Networks no matter how
big small informal and formal with the purpose of connecting them and
assisting them to capacity build. The Working Group was also funded to
meet three times per year for two years so to manage the two projects
and keep the vision moving forward
October 2003 Lloyd Martin was
contracted to co ordinate the research project and Rebecca Blaikie was
contracted as the Network Co ordinator, their contracts were for two
years.
Rebecca Blaikie engaged and established relationships
over the two years with 35 local/regional Youth Workers Networks and
held two Youth Worker Networks reps Hui.
Lloyd surveyed 637
self identified Youth Workers from through out Aotearoa using the Youth
Worker Networks to facilitate the filling out of the surveys. He also
ran fifty six focus groups including three hundred and seventeen Youth
Workers this was done as a Road Show and both Lloyd and Rebecca
organised this.
The research was launched at Victoria
University in February 2006. We believe this to be the most
comprehensive research ever carried out on Youth Work in New Zealand
In
April 2006 we received some funding for the year from the Ministry of
Youth Development which allowed us to contract a Director and a
Capacity Builder the former role of the Network Coordinator. John
Harrington was contracted as the Director and Tania Cooper as the
Capacity Builder.
In October this year we
officially became the National Youth Workers Network Aotearoa
Incorperated and held or inaugral AGM at Tapu Te Ranga Marae where our
ingaural Board and National Council was formed.
The National Youth Workers Network Aotearoa would like to thank the
Ministry Of Youth Development, The Department Of Internal Affairs and
the JR McKenzie Trust for their continual support and for funding our
work.
