Ko Tongariro te Maunga
Ko Taupo-nui-a-Tia te Moana
Ko Te Arawa te Waka
Ko Ngati Tuwharetoa te Iwi
Ko Ngati Hinemihi te Hapu
Ko Kauriki te Marae
Kei Taumarunui toku whare
Ko Leon toku hoa tane
Ko Winter toku tamahine
Ko Jenna Stone toku ingoa
My name is Jenna, born and bred in the little King Country town of Taumarunui.
I have been working as a Transition worker with Dream Makers Trust since October 2020, alongside my dad, James. He supports our male rangatahi while I support our female rangatahi, but if needed we have the opportunity to mahi in this space together.
I have 2 older and 1 younger brother.
James and Mo (our parents) have worked with youth ever since I can remember and I think in turn it’s just been a natural progression for myself and my brothers to be passionate about this space also.
Even though the biggest part of my background has been working in our whanau businesses I feel it has given me so many skills that I bring into this Transition mahi.
Some things I love are spending time with my whanau, exploring our country with my husband and our girl, sports especially Basketball, Netball and Rugby. I love that our Awa, Maunga and Moana are all close too.
What I love the most about working in the Transition space is meeting new people and building relationships with rangatahi to find out how best we can support you on your journey that is “Life”
Supporting Youth with their
Transition to Adulthood
Dream Makers Trust are a key component of this service by providing transition workers.
WHAT IS A TRANSITION WORKER?
Transition workers will guide and support young people to:
• look towards the future, identify their strengths and interests and help them to make and achieve
their goals
• identify and access adult services, and help them become confident in doing this themselves
• develop life skills and help them to reflect and learn from their mistakes
• connect with their identity, their culture, whānau and wider networks of support.
Young people leaving the care of Oranga Tamariki or a youth justice residence face some big
challenges. The Transition Support Service has been designed together with young people, using
insights gathered through a co-design process.
THE NEED
Young people have told us they need:
responsive, flexible, relationship-based support, someone to be there for them, persistent support,
despite their behaviour and decisions - support that can coordinate what they need from their
communities, whānau, hapū and iwi, and adult services.
WHAT WILL TRANSITION SUPPORT MEAN TO YOUNG PEOPLE?
We want to ensure young people leaving our care have the support and opportunities they need to
successfully transition to adulthood and achieve their goals.
Young people will:
• have a transition worker to walk alongside them and maintain regular contact up to the age of 21
• be supported to remain living or return to living with a caregiver between 18 to 21 years of age –
something they haven’t been able to do before
• be able to request advice and assistance from us after they leave care until they turn 25.
Young people will be able to contact their transition worker, their local site or call the Transition
Support Team and receive advice and assistance based on their needs.
Dream Makers Trust are pleased to have acquired the services of James and Jenna Downs to fulfill the roles of our Transition workers.
Since 2016 we have been primarily focused on the reactive mahi inside the YJ space and focus from a more proactive lens that being from the perspective of our own family unit.
With the new opportunities presented by this new role we look forward to accompanying the youth on their journey toward adulthood.
It is important to recognize that many youth can and do succeed in moving forward to become healthy and productive adults. Generally any time they have spent in care has helped them to develop remarkable resiliency with the ability to cope with and recover from many forms of adversity.
We will help them hone those skills to adapt to their circumstances, demonstrate positive behaviours as well as developing healthy relationships with whanau and their communities at large.
This intervention mahi will also help with supporting rangatahi and whanau to bypass the overuse of our court systems.
The one on one, whanau and community approach that we work by has already shown positive results for many youth.
Connecting and reconnecting with whanau has been a major key for rangatahi and helps to keep individuals focused on trying to make better decisions to hopefully be more positive role models in todays society.
Ko Tongariro te maunga
Ko Te Arawa te waka
Ko Taupo te moana
Ko Ngati Tuwharetoa te moana
Ko Ngati Hinemihi to hapu
I whanau mai au i Taumarunui
Ko Moana toku hoa wahine
Ko James Downes toku ingoa
Kia ora koutou
I am one of the two Transition workers contracted by Dream Makers Trust, who holds the Transition Contract for Taumarunui.
My daughter, Jenna, is the other one.
My whanau and I have been very much involved with rangatahi and youth work for over 30 years. Through our programs we have been able to build a very strong and successful support base for our rangatahi within, Oranga Tamariki, Youth Justice, Corrections, Primary and Secondary Education and have seen some amazing outcomes for them.
When we were approached to take on the contract, I spoke with my daughter about sharing the contract so that our rangatahi would not feel uncomfortable. I believe that the initial contact needed to be approached this way where Jenna would make the first contact with the girls and myself with the boys. By this we have seen a quicker response from them. We have also found it helpful, at times, to be able to talk from a Father/Daughter position.
I strongly believe that, given the right encouragement, support and advise our rangatahi can and do start to find solutions to their challenges.
I love my job and get a lot of satisfaction from seeing our rangatahi go from strength to strength.
I belive that one of the best moves made by Government for our rangatahi has been the roll out of the Transitions to Independence Initiative!