KEY POINTS:
Some of New Zealand's most disadvantaged young people will soon be flying with the Air Force under a novel partnership deal to be signed next week.
The Air Force has agreed to provide mentors, camp facilities and flying experiences for selected young offenders and other youngsters in the care of Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS), without charge.
Announcing the deal at the foster parents' annual conference in Tauranga yesterday, CYFS head Ray Smith appealed to other organisations to help with mentoring and useful experiences for the 5000 children and young people in CYFS care.
"It's only 5000 kids in a country of four million people," he said. "I believe we can do more for these kids, communities can do more, and there are lots of organisations that can do more to give these kids experiences and turn their lives around.
"If every corporate took on one of these kids, that wouldn't be hard, would it?"
He said the Air Force partnership started when people from 40 Squadron at Whenuapai airbase approached CYFS after the Nia Glassie tragedy last August, in which a 3-year-old Rotorua girl died after being spun in a washing machine and hung out to dry.
"The Air Force came to us in Auckland and said we'd like to do something for kids and their foster parents. They took 50 kids and their foster parents up for a joyride over Auckland," he said.
"A lot of those kids had never been over the harbour bridge, let alone on a Hercules.
"The young men and women of the Air Force are great for our young people to look up to. What they can do is give them an experience."
He said the relationship had grown into a scheme where individual Air Force staff had started to mentor some young people in state care, taking them to Whenuapai once every week or fortnight.
"If it can lead on, for some of our older kids, into them thinking about careers and jobs and what might be involved in the workplace, so much the better," he said.
He said the Air Force had also offered its training camps for new foster parents to use "as a bonding thing" to get to know children when they took them on.
CYFS already pays the Army to take some young people in state care on the Limited Services Volunteer scheme, and Mr Smith is talking to the Defence Force about extending this to longer stays for some youths.
But the Air Force deal is different because CYFS will not have to pay for it.
"The Defence Forces are really keen to engage us in ways that they can help these young people," he said.
Apart from the Defence Forces, he said there was only limited outside involvement in CYFS care. For example, the Canterbury and Otago rugby unions had agreed to provide free tickets to NPC games for some CYFS young people.
The executive officer of the Family and Foster Care Federation, Gaylene Lawrence, said L'Oreal gave $10,000 last year.
The money was used for first aid courses and some hairdressing appointments for foster parents and for girls in state care attending their school balls.
Mr Smith also said the agency had doubled placements for young offenders in "supervision with activity" with eight providers around the country, including the military-style Male Youth New Directions (MYND) in Manukau which had feared losing its funding two months ago.
CYFS is now negotiating with MYND and Graeme Dingle's Foundation for Youth Development about extending MYND's courses nationally.
