Case Study 1
14 year old John Smith – Managed Moves and Kaitautoko* – Mentor Impact
Kaitautoko is a role that Waitakere Alternative Education Consortium have established to respond to the high and complex needs of the young people they support. A kaitautoko works with a young person in a way that is tailored to that young person’s needs. It may include, but is not limited to: teacher aide, prosocial support, life skills coaching, providing transport and access to other services, counselling, behaviour management support, working with schools to better support the young person. The kaitautoko works with the young person for as long and as intensively as they need.
John grew up in West Auckland with his younger siblings, his mother and his stepfather. His mother has health issues of her own, and John has health problems that have been impacting on his growth and development (ADHD and coeliac disease). He was excluded from school and did not attend school for 12 months before being taken on by the Managed Moves programme and placed with a Waitakere Alternative Education Consortium provider.
Managed Moves has been working with John for two years now, and he has had a dedicated kaitautoko. On enrolment, it was discovered that while he had an ADHD diagnosis he was not taking the prescribed medication, and that he was not following the recommended diet for coeliac disease. His high levels of anxiety and shyness precluded him from attending many of the prosocial activities that were recommended for him. Oranga Tamariki were involved with the family as the mother had health issues of her own and a lack of income required to support their essential needs. Additional tests were recommended at the professionals meeting. The results from the physical tests done were that John was severely malnourished due to his coeliac condition. This was having a major impact on his learning and on his behaviour.
How the Managed Moves coordinator helped:
- Supported the family with WINZ to access additional funds to get the gluten free foods and supplements John needed to improve his physical health.
- ORRS funding was applied for to see if they could move John from AE to a Special School which was felt would be more suitable, however this was not a successful application.
- Assigned a one on one kaitautoko to work with John.
- Helped fifind John work experience placement and opportunity to gain unit standards. How the kaitautoko helped:
- Built a solid relationship with John who found it difficult to trust people and was shy. Through support, the number of behaviour related incidents decreased signifificantly.
- Supported academically with significant improvement in John’s reading.
The successes he had with his kaitautoko meant John had a new love for school and the family reported he was often ready to go to course an hour beforehand, which was a signifificant change in attitude and motivation for him. He also had major improvement in social skills and manners.
The kaitautoko strengths-based approach meant that, even with the occasional set
back, John was able to progress through his individualised learning plan. He had the greatest educational success and experience while engaged with this programme.
Outcome:
John has successfully completed several work experience opportunities. His health has improved, and he is managing his conditions well. His success has taken some pressures off the family as well. He has recently moved to another region, but a hand over from the Managed Moves coordinator to the local provider in the region has occurred.
Case Study 2
18 year old John Smith (Prepared independently of Managed Moves)
Managed Moves and Youth Employment Support Service programme participant. Highest need and most complex case for YESS – but with the best success.
John grew up in West Auckland with his younger siblings and Pacifific Island-born parents. At home he was subjected to violence, and his younger siblings were taken into care. His father’s health problems left him unable to work, with the family living off a benefifit. He was caught tagging and stealing and ended up heavily involved in a local youth gang.
His relationship with his father was strained, so he often stayed away from home, sleeping on the local school grounds or in stolen cars. With English as a second language, his parents struggled to know what to do to help John, who spoke of his mother being distraught each time he was arrested.
The role models in John’s life placed little value on education and during his intermediate years he was often truant from school.
At 13, John didn’t attend his fifirst year at high school and Child, Youth and Family (CYF – now Oranga Tamariki) referred him to Waitakere Alternative Education Consortium (WAEC).
He was placed with an Alternative Education (AE) provider, where the tutors supported him to engage with his education and other positive activities during school hours. In addition, he was referred to a local community led youth initiative, which supported him outside of school hours. This initiative provided him with a mentor who engaged him in positive events, sports and activities focused on growing youth leadership and community pride.
Like many at risk young people, John arrived at AE with a number of concerns for his tutors and support workers. He had health concerns that hadn’t been addressed, regularly drank alcohol and smoked both cigarettes and weed, was well known by Police Youth Aid and had little regard for education or teachers. His initial journey within AE was up and down as he continued smoking, tagging and getting in trouble with police, especially in the holidays when boredom and a lack of stability set in. Each time he returned to AE from holidays, it would take a time for him to readjust to school routine.
During John’s fifirst year at AE, there were several incidents of violence and he was at serious risk of exclusion after an act of violence towards a tutor and destruction of school property. The Director of WAEC called a professionals meeting at John’s home to address the matter. Invited were police, CYF, the AE tutors, his external mentor, and his parents. Unfortunately, only the Director of WAEC and his tutor attended along with John and his parents. The professionals involved could see intelligence and leadership qualities in John, and wanted him to be able to see this, too. It would have been easier to exclude John, however one of his tutors spent some time talking with him, showing compassion and relating to his situation. Seeing that someone cared about him and his future, John opened up about the impact his siblings’ removal from home had on him. This was a turning point for John, who started to respect his tutor. With this in mind; along with WAEC’s reluctance to exclude John, knowing that this would place him on a negative pathway for his future; the tutors agreed to give him another trial, with the provision of a one on one teacher aid support.
The teacher aid provided one on one support every day for John within the classroom and
John began working with, rather than against, his tutors. He became more engaged in activities and his learning, stopped tagging, and became a role model and leader to younger students. He championed good behaviour, showing them that tagging wasn’t what they did at AE. John continued to open-up to his tutors and communicated his dream to be a builder or mechanic. AE applied for John to attend the Silver Fern 10-day mechanics course, to which he was accepted and had 100% attendance. Funding for Kiwi Sport activities also enabled the kids to engage in boxing. John, along with a few of his peers, attended the boxing and he even quit smoking to help him to reach his KPIs for the training. Along with educational support, AE’s nurse provided support and advocacy for doctor visits to address health concerns and John was also referred to mental health support. Unfortunately, he wasn’t granted support as his actions were considered behavioural.
During 2016, the Achieving at Waitakere Trust (A@W Trust), established by the Secondary School Principals of West Auckland, and WAEC, began working together on a mutual relationship. Knowing that the current system wasn’t working well for at risk young people, they wanted to create a model that would bring more collaboration, strong leadership, complimentary relationships and a shared vision for collaboratively facilitating young people’s journeys through education to employment.
As John’s sense of belonging increased at AE he continued to make progress with his learning, however still struggled during the holidays when he had less support and structure. When boredom set in, it was easier to go back to what he knew and the ‘safety’ of his community.
In early 2017, the A@W Trust, as an umbrella organisation, supported WAEC to develop
the Managed Moves Programme (MMP). This programme provided a coordinated approach
to supporting young people at risk of exclusion to enable them to stay engaged in education in a way that worked best for them. https:// aawcollectiveimpact.org/youth-at-risk-workstream/ Young people within AE are funded within the service until they turn 16. At the beginning of what would be his last year, John’s behaviour escalated again, knowing that change was coming. John didn’t like change or meeting new people, so found adjusting to new or changing circumstances difficult.
John was referred to the MMP and the Managed Moves coordinator worked closely with John to help him understand the change that was coming and provide him with choices for continuing his education. It was mutually agreed that an early release from AE to attend a local carpentry course for the remainder of this year would benefit John most. That year, John transitioned from AE to the carpentry course. John was still supported through the MMP and his tutors also provided mentoring and advice to keep him on track with the course.
In the meantime, the A@W and WAEC relationship continued to build and, with the success of the MMP, they developed and launched the Youth Employment Support Scheme (YESS) at the end of 2017. YESS works with young people aged 16–24 to determine their ducational goals, employment aspirations, and what they need to achieve their goals. They then work with partner employers and provide pastoral care to support the young person into employment.
Conversations about his future continued and John was one of the initial in-take into YESS. While John aspired to be a builder he was nervous about further education, believing that Unitec was a place for smart people, and that wasn’t him. Through the YESS programme, John was supported to apply for a Māori Pacific Trade Training (MPTT) Scholarship and Unitec Placement and was accepted for both. YESS helped John realise his goals and build his confidence, preparing for him to attend. Prior to this, John hadn’t seen himself leaving his community to study or work, let alone attending tertiary education. Through Youth Service West, John also gained his driver’s licence, which is often a barrier to employment for young people, especially those working in a trade.
Despite his amazing progress things weren’t smooth sailing and, due to prior inflfluences in his home community, just before Unitec started he was arrested for stealing and crashing a car. This was a critical stage in John’s life. As a youth still, WAEC and YESS strongly advocated for him with Police Youth Aid. They were able to demonstrate his positive behaviour change over the past few years and the work he has put in to turn his life around and attend Unitec. He was given community service work, reparation, mandated to counselling, wrote an apology letter and agreed to drug testing. He was lucky to avoid being sentenced to a youth detention centre. His friend, however, who was a little older was tried and convicted as an adult and is currently serving time in prison.
From here, John started his Unitec course and did well with his attendance, considering the considerable change this was for him. YESS remained as a support for him and provided
a mentor who acted as an advocate and link between MPTT, Unitec and John, often taking him to course in the mornings. After a few months, it became apparent that John wasn’t attending the afternoon classes. They soon discovered he was not having breakfast or lunch, which impacted his ability to concentrate in the afternoons. They also realised that he didn’t have the computer based skills needed to complete the theory work and was behind on this section of the course work. John’s mentor took him supermarket shopping, taught him how to make his lunches and budget. They sat with him to teach him the computer skills he needed that enabled him to catch up on his theory. YESS also provided John with an opportunity to connect with a professional, who gave him tips on professional interviews, conversations, and he completed personality testing to help him understand himself and his strengths.
John’s progress at Unitec continued to build and he was chosen as a member of the student leadership team for MPTT. When he completed his course, receiving a Certifificate in Carpentry, he also received a Unitec award.
His next step was to fifind work and he also really wanted to connect back with his community church, but he was afraid of being judged by those who knew his past. Encouragement from his mentors helped him go back to church, where he found support and encouragement for the work he had done to turn his life around. Through a connection at church, he got a job and has been stable in this role since the end of 2018. John is very grateful for this opportunity as he feels he may have fallen back into his old ways in his community without the structure and purpose work provides him.
John’s work takes him across Auckland and beyond every week. An impressive step for someone previously anxious to go outside his community, as a young person who only knew a life of violence and crime and for someone who didn’t believe he was smart enough to get a tertiary education.
John was fortunate to benefifit from the early establishment of the Achieving at Waitakere Collective Impact Initiative as part of the Managed Moves and YESS programmes. Over and above what AE could provide, these interventions made all the difference for John’s future. The risk factors that John displayed prior to receiving this support would indicate a far less positive outcome for him. He openly says that if he hadn’t had the support and belief in him from WAEC, A@W, MMP, YESS and MPTT he would be in jail or otherwise dead.
John’s siblings are now back home and his goal is to one day build a house of his own.
He openly says that if he hadn’t had the support and belief
John Smith age 18
in him from WAEC, A@W, MMP, YESS and MPTT he would be in jail or otherwise dead.
Te Ako Manaaki 