5 minute speaker - Tim Beere
Tim talked about the Little Ice Age that occurred in the 15th century. It caused terrible loss of life and suffering. Tim spoke about climate change disrupting crops and supply chains in the future.
Guest Speaker: Raechel Osborne
Kāpiti Youth Support (KYS)
Linda introduced Raechel who was born and raised in Kāpiti. She trained as a nurse, and lived and has worked in Wellington and London. 30 years ago she was a driving force in establishing KYS and has worked for them for a long time. Raechel has been recognised for her mahi with 2 Paul Harris Fellowships, which is a high honour in the Rotary world.
Raechel explained KYS was created to address unmet health needs of young people in our local community. Local youth were surveyed and there were public meetings to ascertain what was needed. Funding was obtained and the service was established. Its vision is to be respected and recognised internationally for enabling youth to thrive in our community and across Aotearoa. They have succeeded: the service has won Australasian awards.
Today, KYS offers a wide range of services including a full medical and mental health service, education, parenting, mentoring and much more. KYS sees 5,400 people between 10 and 25 years old each year, approximately 60% of local youth.
KYS has 16 permanent staff and about 60 staff in all. They include very experienced and capable professionals working in a multi disciplinary team, and youth representatives from the colleges.
The service has developed an integrated holistic framework that has been proven by research to be the most effective model for supporting rangatahi. Over the past 5 years, KYS has developed a platform called Levo that enables all staff to capture the inputs, outputs and outcomes. It is a valuable measurement tool.
KYS is 95% government funded, and the rest is made up of grants and donations. Many contracts are of short duration and they must engage with 10 different funding agencies. This requires a huge amount of contract management, reporting and auditing. KYS has been working towards financial sustainability including engaging with the Social Investment Agency.
Raechel said the 12 month waiting list for mental health services is frustrating and KYS is often picking up the pieces. She wasn't familiar with our Lifting the Lid programme: President Ross said he would ensure connections are made to assist with referrals.
