Karen Chhour: Minister for Children on military style bootcamps finishing and young people transitioning back into community

The first Military Style Bootcamp has wrapped up and the ten young people are now transitioning back into the community.

The youth spent 3 months in the programme and will now head into the 9-month community stage, which Minister for Children Karen Chhour says will look different for each young person.

Chhour tells Heather du Plessis-Allan each person has a detailed plan and will work extensively with their mentor, social workers and whanau.

During the programme, the youth were set up with items like a photo ID, bank account and CV to aid in being able to find work.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first part of the military style boot camps has
finished up and the kids are now going to transition
back into the community. Now its ten young people. They
had three months in the boot camp where they learnt
things like how to iron their clothes, how to keep
their rooms clean. Now they're going to move back into
the community with support for the next nine months. The
Minister for Children is Karen Sure Hey.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Karen, oh hey, how's it going good?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Thank you? So what does the support for the next
nine months look like? Oh?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
So each young person has a real detailed plan going
back into the community, working with their intensive mentor that
that they're matched to, and also with their social workers
and their FARO.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, and what are these people doing to help them?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
So the mentors will be there to help guide them
through things of day to day life, whether it be
getting a job, whether it be helping them navigate the
independent and a home. Anything that they need help with.
This mentor will be there side by side working with them.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
And sense of visit, I mean, is it like multiple
hours a day or just as and when you need them?
What are we talking about?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
So that will be part of an individualized plan that
has been put together depending on that young person and
what they needed. So the young person kind of steered
the direction of what they saw success being and the
plan was wrapped around that to help them achieve what
they wanted to achieve. So it'll be different for each

(01:26):
young person.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, And so they leave the boot camp with a kitbag, right,
and they've got things like photo idea bank account, a CV.
Would they normally not have those things?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh? No, And this is the issue. I mean, we
take for granted that we have these things or we
know how to get these things, but without it, it's
it's nearly impossible to do basic things like get a
job because you need an IRD number and you need
a bank account to get a job, and you also
need photo ID to do that also. So we've made

(01:56):
sure that we've set them up with these basic things
that will make a real big difference.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Have you seen a change in these kids?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well? Absolutely, I mean it's something that I will not
forget for a really long time, just seeing the pride
not only in the young people's faces, but in their
faros faces as well. When they graduated the first stage
of this program. It's massive difference in their confidence, their

(02:24):
self esteem, and even in their manners to be perfectly honest.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Really, the manners, Yeah, it's just looking you.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
In the eye when you're talking to you, shaking your hand,
and just the smiles. They are massive for me. It's
an absolute inspiration for what can be done when we
actually make an effort to support young people.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Now, now, the thing is, Karen, a lot of this
will just be role modeling. Right. If you're around people
who don't look other people in the eye, including you,
that's the behavior as a kid that you mimic. And
so all of a sudden, you're in a boot camp
with people who do look you out in the eye,
you start copying that. Aren't they just going to go
back to the way the way that they were once
they're back in their usual surroundings.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, well that's the whole point. The biggest focus is
when they go back into the community, because I've said
quite a few times lessons learnt from previous military style academies.
For them to work, there needs to be a massive
change in how we deal with these young people once
they leave. We can't just close the door behind them

(03:28):
and say that's that we've done our job. We have
to help them with that transition back to the community,
finding employment, going back to school and doing the things
that most young people get in a day without even
having to think about it.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, okay, so when does the next lot come in?

Speaker 2 (03:47):
So we're running this pilot. So first stage done. Second
stage is the community transition and also we've got the
assessment stage that we need to be working through as well.
We're looking at put putting them introducing the more law
change in par at the end of this year. Hopefully
that will be past beginning of next year, and then

(04:09):
we can start seeing police and judges having the ability
to use this as a sentencing tool.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Good stuff. I thank you, Karen, beings of luck with it.
Karen's your Minister for Children. For more from Heather Duplessy,
Alan Drive, listen live to news talks they'd be from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.