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Mana Arahi is a virtual learning programme targeting year 13 secondary school students with the aim of encouraging them to pursue a career in the AOD/social services sector. With only 3% of the current AOD workforce aged 30 or younger, Mana Arahi aims to help address the mismatch between the workforce and people with addictions. Mana Arahi has been piloted this year from term two, with 12 students, and it will be offered at the start of the academic year in 2011.
The programme is offered in partnership with WelTec, delivered via e-learning, and supported by the Ministry of Education. Students can access their teacher through email, chat, forums and weekly face to face sessions. NZQA has also given support and advice, particularly in the development of unit standards.
The course, which includes a marae stay, will provide a skill-based pathway which will lead students towards enrolment in a bachelors programme in AOD or social service studies. Several NGO addiction treatment providers have indicated their willingness to support the students during the pilot and while they progress through their tertiary studies.
The name Mana Arahi represents the students’ self-determined journey onwards and upwards from school through tertiary education and into the workforce.
Matua Raki’s youth projects also include:
- Improving the confidence and ability of services who work with at risk youth to screen, refer and provide a brief intervention, by delivering SACS- BI trainings to social services who work with at-risk youth.
- Developing career pathway in addiction through secondary and tertiary education into services.
- The establishment of a youth focused reference group
- Establishing a mentoring framework for addiction practitioners who work with youth.
- To seek, investigate and promote effective ‘resources and tools’ to enhance practitioner competencies in working with youth.
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