This platform has multiple stages in its development pathway, what you are seeing now is just the beginning of a very exciting project.
Peak Body for Youth Development
Ara Taiohi is a Te Tiriti based organisation with over 1000 relational members, all of whom work with young people, supporting their positive youth development. The core of our community is Youth Work in a diverse range of contexts, including kauapapa Māori, Pasifika, rainbow, faith based, disabilities, ethnic communities, uniform organisations, youth health, online etc. Our wider membership embraces all who work with young people including nurses, coaches, mentors, doctors, social workers, advocates etc. Our shared kaupapa is a commitment to building mana-enhancing, participatory relationships with young people.
All our mahi is connected to our whatu raranga, our strategic goals which are to:
- Whakawhanaungatanga, Connect the sector
- Whakamanatanga, Raise the standards
- Taiohitanga, Champion youth development
- Rōnakitanga, Promote sustainability
This includes offering training, networking, e-updates, and resources (including the Mana Taiohi principles of youth development, and the Code of Ethics for Youth Work). Our key projects include Youth Week, Korowai Tupu (the professional association for Youth Work in Aotearoa), co-hosting Involve (the national youth development conference) and umbrellaing Te Ngākau Kahukura (a collaborative project with rainbow communities that works towards systems change for inclusion of young people from the LGBTIQ communities).
About the Collaborative Trust for Youth Health and Development
The Collaborative Trust was established in 2004 to support healthy, mana enhancing development of rangatahi (young people) in Aotearoa. Our mahi is grounded in our core values of:
- Working in partnership with Tangata Whenua and honouring the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi
- Being a bicultural organisation inclusive of all cultures, ethnicities and identities
- Maintaining youth participation at all levels of our organisation
- Honouring the contribution of Pasifika people and the ‘Pacific Way’
- Promoting holistic views of healthy developement
- Working by co-ordination, sharing and strengthening.
We acknowledge that there are many contributors supporting the healthy development of rangatahi. We see our part as ensuring people working with or supporting young people have access to high quality information about healthy youth development relevant to rangatahi in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We do this by:
- producing community-based research that aligns with other research to inform the knowledge base about healthy youth development
- evidence-informed training that supports the healthy development of rangatahi
- evaluations of programmes and services provided for rangatahi
We ensure the voices of rangatahi are included in the knowledge base about healthy youth development because we are focused on research/evaluation and training by, with and for young people
We advocate for evidence-informed policy and practice that enhances healthy youth development by:
- providing space for youth voices to be heard
- working to support greater dissemination and translation of youth development research