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Youth, mentoring, and the media

Public perception of our youth often seems to be shaped more by sensational headlines than reality. We can see this daily: a quick study of online search behaviour shows that the most common use of the word ‘youth’ in the news media in the past 12 months has been when it is followed by the word ‘crime’. All of this, of course, is in stark contrast to research that shows a sharp decline in youth crime in the past decade (I recognise this doesn’t count some local changes post-covid.)Thes...

Matariki Year 8 to Matariki Year 11: Success at Junior High School

In November 2024 two taiohi from Thames joined an Upskilling Young Kaimahi workshop in Tauranga. They had a story to tell about their mahi with rangatahi in their hometown. So on a glorious day in February this year Ann Dunphy, chair of NZYMN and I sat in the shade of the old railway station and met the Kaitāmiro from Ngāti Maru Runanga as they told us about their programme, Whakatupu Tētēkura. (Raising young warriors)What started as a response to a suicide tragedy has grown into a well-deve...

First Impressions of Youth Mentoring

Jumping in at the deep end In the first four months in my role at the Youth Mentoring Network I’ve received a crash-course in life in the youth sector, have polished up my personal mentoring & communication skills, and I’ve met a sublime cast of characters from youth workers and teachers through to inspirational facilitators.  I must admit, I didn’t know what I was getting into with this job. I’ve been a publisher and magazine editor, a company director and a digital designer. I...

Top Tips for Working with Volunteers

This post first appeared in our newsletter ‘Connections’ ins the summer of 2020/2021.REP is a programme that brings community volunteers into a school setting, to support Year 9 students with literacy development and transition to high school. Deb Cane, who co-ordinates at two locations, has some valuable thoughts to share. 1. Recruitment Find the places where the people you are looking for are likely to be. Deb tends to advertise in libraries, service clubs like Rotary, or through the Unive...