The Youth Mentoring Network

About Us

Our History

Key achievements

2000 Auckland Youth Mentoring Association formed - an association of volunteers from education and business backgrounds, offering networking and self-help seminars for people involved in Youth Mentoring in the Auckland region
2001 Presented at NZ's second national conference in Blenheim, organised by the South Island- based Youth Mentoring Association of Aotearoa-New Zealand
2002 In association with COMET produced NZ's first YM publication - Youth Mentoring: An Advice Manual for Manukau and Beyond
2003 Hosted Resiliency presentation by US speaker Nan Henderson, among a range of other seminars
2004 Continued regional seminars and networking from Auckland base, reached limit of what could be achieved without funding
2005 Formed charitable trust to access philanthropic funds to undertake the role of national co-ordination since YMAANZ were no longer active
2006 Launched national website with funding from the JR Mackenzie Foundation
2007 Ran first Auckland-based national conference, supported by the Fletcher Trust, featuring Australian and local speakers
2008 Developed the first edition of the Guide to Effective Practice in Youth Mentoring, funded by the Ministry of Youth Development
2009 Launched the Guide to Effective Practice in Youth Mentoring and delivered our second National Youth Mentoring Conference, strengthening regional and international links
2010 Developed two training programmes to address the needs of the sector. "MentorPlus" focuses on mentoring skills development and "Mentoring Matters" focuses on mentor programme effective practice.  Jane Edwards developed these programmes on behalf of NZYMN and was our inaugural training facilitator. In 2010 we also had the pleasure of hosting David Dubios, University of Illinois and co-editor of the Handbook of Youth Mentoring
2011 Ran our third biennial national conference and continued delivery of professional development training to the sector
2012 Developed foundational MentorPlus training to tie in with national qualifications in Youth Work.  Appointed Nicki McDonald as General Manager and hosted leading USA academic, Dr Renee Spencer. 
2013 In conjunction the Ministry of Health Children’s Action Plan directorate, developed the Safe Practices Guidelines for Youth Mentoring Programmes andran our fourth bienneial national conference
2014 In conjunctionwith Dr Pat Bullen, University of Auckland Lecturer and recipient of the 2014 Vodafone World of Difference Fellowship we commenced the mapping of the youth mentoring sector in order to establish a comprehensive and up-to-date database of organisations and practitioners offering mentoring services around the country. 
2015 In conjunction with the University of Auckland we co-hosted two presentations by Professor Toni Zimmerman, Colorado State University and creator of the Campus Corps mentoring model.  We have also recently hosted Professor Michael Karcher, University of Texas and co-editor of both editions of the Handbook of Youth Mentoring.  We have commenced the refresh of the website and the 2nd edition of the Guide to Effective Practice in Youth Mentoring NZ.  
2016 We published the 2nd Edition of our Guide to Effective and Safe Practice in Youth Mentoring; delivered a one day national conference followed by a series of Regional workshops to upskill people and communities on the new Guide, kindly funded by The Tindall Foundation. 
2017 We completed the delivery of 18 regional workshops on the new Guide - 522 people representing 262 organisations from Kaitaia to Invercargill attended.
2018 We successfully delivered the Involve 2018 National Youth Development Conference in colloboration with Ara Taiohi, the Peak Body for Youth Development, The Collaborative Trust and The Society of Youth Health Professional Aotearoa NZ.
2019 With further funding from The Tindall  Foundation, we developed our second workshop in the Sharing the Kaupapa series - Quality Relationships in Youth Mentoring, and successfully deliveried it in 15 locations across the motu. Through the workshops we met over 400 dedicated mentors working hard to support the rangatahi of Aotearoa. We also launched our new CONNECTIONS newsletter.             
2020 The ‘stay home’ order of NZ’s Covid- 19 response pushed NZYMN to venture further into the virtual world – converted our Sharing the Kaupapa workshop into a zoom presentation and organized (in partnership) the INVOLVE digital conference with over a thousand participants.  
2021

Its was a year of two halves. The first half relatively Covid free with workshops and INVOLVE Reunion conference going to plan. The second half, with Delta, seeing massive cancellations and postponements. With continued funding from The Tindall Foundation we were able to develop the 3rd workshop in our highly successful Sharing the Kaupapa regional series. However, with the exception of a pilot workshop in Cromwell, Central Otago all others had to be postponed. 

2022 We are delighted to revive our planned Whai Wāhitanga workshops - delivering 18 around the Motu from June through to December and for the first time, a couple of the workshops were successfully delivered online to rave reviews.