Manukau plan offers hand up for youngsters

Schools, businesses, local and central governments and volunteers are coming together to help every school-leaver in Manukau to find a job or further training.

A "Manukau youth initiative", due to start next month, aims to mentor up to a quarter of the 3500 to 4000 young people who leave school in the city each year - the ones who fall into what Mayor Len Brown calls a "nether world" of neither work nor training.

He said schools would provide contact details for all school-leavers but three-quarters of them found work or training on their own steam and would need only "light contact - a phone call every six months".

National statistics show the number of people aged 15 to 24 who are not in employment, education, training or caregiving - a category called "NEET" - increased last year from 7.2 per cent to 11.4 per cent, or one in every nine young people.

The Manukau number is certain to be much higher because of its large Polynesian population. Nationally, 20.4 per cent of young Maori and 14.8 per cent of Pacific youth were NEET at the end of last year.

The central government already provides "youth transition services" contracted by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in 24 locations, but they do not cover the whole country and most of them do not try to reach all school-leavers.

The only contract in the Counties-Manukau area is held by the Manurewa-based training company Solomon Group, which takes referrals of young people at risk from schools, truancy officers, Maori wardens and other agencies. It is contracted to work with up to 2500 young people a year in Manukau, Papakura and Franklin.

Mr Brown said Solomon Group would remain the "underlying provider" for the new service, but other agencies working with youth across Manukau would be linked in.

"There is duplication across the region," he said. "We will be looking at reprioritising some of that spending with MSD and making sure that it's focused on ensuring that every school-leaver is picked up."

He said the initiative would start on a pilot basis with the five secondary schools in Mangere and would roll out to the rest of the city over the next year.

No ratepayer funding would be needed, but the scheme would link with businesses through Enterprising Manukau and would enlist volunteers to work with Solomon's paid staff.

"I see some brilliant opportunities for semi-retired and retired tradesmen and craftsmen. There are many out there hanging out to be involved."

The scheme is modelled on a similar one in the King Country town of Otorohanga, which has maintained an extraordinary zero youth unemployment right through the recession.

Regional MSD Commissioner Gloria Campbell said: "Our experience is that any youth in the district do not stay on benefit for any length of time, given the support and options available in Otorohanga."