Blue Light Books for Te Puke High School students

From left, Blue Light youth mentors Kayla Murphy and Abbe-Mae Henry, Te Puke Community Board chairman Richard Crawford, Constable Sheryl Fitzgerald and Te Puke High School principal Alan Liddle.

Some things are handy to know.

Year 13 students at Te Puke High School are about to get a whole book full of useful information thanks to Blue Light and Te Puke Community Board.

Last week the school received copies of Blue Light's Street Smart handbook to be handed out to students.

The book provides Year 13 students with essential information and advice for the world post-school, combined with contact details for key government and service agencies in their community.

Whether moving out of home, trying to get a driver's licence, deciding on a tertiary education or employment opportunities or wanting some health and wellbeing tips, the book has got it covered.

It gives students practical tools to negotiate with landlords, buy their first car and set a sensible budget.

Principal Alan Liddle says the handbook contains lots of good information.

"Students' lives are pretty complicated and to have some reference they can go to to help them is great. This [book] has handy advice in it and it's written in a nice manner for the kids to understand," he says.

"Life was a lot simpler in the past, but now there are things our kids need to know, plus it's right up to date with Covid."

Alan says most students' reference points come from family and friends, but that may not cover all bases.

"They can have a quick look in here and find out other valuable information - so it's part of that self-responsibility as well."

Te Puke Community Board chairman Richard Crawford says the board wanted to support Blue Light and the work it does with young people.

"This is the wing of the police working with youth and as a community board I think our ratepayers will be pretty happy that we've given some of our community board grant money towards this initiative," he says.

"It's a great publication that has good information."

Supporting youth initiatives has been one of the features of the current community board, he says.

Street Smart is delivered across New Zealand to secondary schools due to generous donations from local philanthropy. This year over 23,000 Year 13 students will receive the Street Smart Handbook.

Blue Light is a community policing initiative that runs programmes and activities throughout New Zealand free from drugs, alcohol, and violence. Each year over 200,000 young people and their families are involved in Blue Light programmes either directly or indirectly.