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SUPPORTERS NEWSLETTER SPRING 2014 ISSUE 6

YOUTHLINE

MEET THE YOUTHLINE MARATHON TEAM!On November 2nd 2014 our 34 Golden Runners and 33 Community Runners are taking on the ASB Auckland Marathon for Youthline! All have been fundraising non-stop over the past few months to hit our collective target - $60,000 - to keep Youthline’s Helpline running for one month, and support 2,000 young people. At the time of publishing this newsletter, we are about $6,000 away from our target, which is absolutely incredible. It has been so cool seeing the team come together and share their stories about why they are running for Youthline. They have very different reasons for running, but all share a connection to New Zealand’s young people.

Youthline has two cheer stations on Marathon day, one at Smales Farm in Takapuna, and one on Curran Street (on the grass underneath the Harbour Bridge). If you’re looking for a place to cheer on the marathon runners, come hang out with us!

Cheers, Dom Boekweit, Events and Fundraising

FRIENDS OF

Youthline’s Marathon Team at the Simpson Grierson offices in Auckland

MEET THE RUNNERS

We are lucky enough to have a team of eight Youthline staff members, one board member and five volunteers as part of the Youthline Marathon Team. This includes Biddy, one of our awesome Youth Workers.

Biddy has been entertaining the Youthline office with stories of her cat that follows her and her flatmate out for runs, and waits patiently at the corner for her to come home. She’s also a Helpline counsellor and recently graduated with a Masters in Psychology First Class Honours.

Biddy has already raised a massive $1,420! To help her out please head to www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/YouthlineBiddy

A suicide by a young resident in her local community is the reason behind Ellie David’s monthly movie nights at the local community centre. She’s using the movie nights as a way to raise funds and awareness about Youthline’s services.

“It’s about bringing our community together again, showing what’s important for our families and introducing a social element for those aged 13 to 18, as there’s not many places to go on a Friday and Saturday night.” Ellie’s also been talking to youth at local schools about what we do at Youthline.

Contribute to Ellie’s fundraising effort at www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/Ellie

IN THIS ISSUE1 DOM BOEKWEIT

EVENTS AND FUNDRAISING

MEET THE RUNNERS

2 BODYNEED FUNDRAISER

VOLUNTEER PROFILE:NATALIE GERMANN

YOUTHLINE’S MARATHON TEAM

3 THE EDGE PARTNERSHIP

TWO HANDS TATTOO FLASH DAY

THANKS FUNDERS!

COCA-COLA CHRISTMAS IN THE PARK

4 TEXT COUNSELLING PILOT

YOUTHLINE SOUTHLAND COORDINATOR: JARED STANFORD

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BODYNEED BINGO COMEDY FUNDRAISER A MASSIVE SUCCESS

The Bodyneed Ponsonby Sports Clinic put on an awesome Bitchin’ Bingo fundraiser on Friday 10th October and raised a massive $9,000 for Youthline! There are two staff members from Bodyneed running the ASB Auckland Marathon for Youthline so they have made a huge impact on our team total. As well as some very entertaining bingo, there was a silent auction and raffle throughout the night.

Bodyneed has been an awesome partner in our 2014 marathon journey. Their team of incredibly experienced staff have shared training and nutrition tips, completed running tests and been a general source of knowledge for our Marathon Team. They will also be there on race day giving massages to our runners once they cross the finish line. Thanks Bodyneed! Check them out at www.bodyneed.co.nz

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT YOUTHLINE’S ASB AUCKLAND MARATHON TEAM

Simpson Grierson is one of our ongoing partners, and they have a massive EIGHT staff members running for us! As well as feeding all of our runners after the race, they also hosted our last runners meeting at their awesome Auckland City offices.

From their office windows we could see the entire marathon route. While this was a great source of amusement for those non-runners present, it definitely made our runners step up their training.

seconds of walking). This technique helped me overcome my fear of running - now I love it!”

Last year Sheena ran in the Waitakere Fun Run, the Auckland Quarter Marathon, the Tough Guy and Tough Girl competitions and Round The Bays. This year she’s completed six out of the ten runs - which makes running for Youthline the seventh.

So why Youthline?

“What a fantastic charity! I work at BEST Pacific and we provide youth programmes for those aged 16 - 19, among other courses. I have had one or two dealings with youth referred from Youthline so I thought this was a fantastic opportunity. I am really honoured and proud to be running for them!”

Sheena Fatiolofa is a woman on a mission.

She has set herself a goal of completing ten running events in 2014 and is competing the ASB Auckland Half Marathon for Youthline as part of it.

She’s from Henderson and is a solo mum to two boys - Dontayne (8) and Kingston (6).

“When I turned 30 I was at my heaviest, I started my weight loss journey at Contours Henderson, did a few bootcamps and started to run! I started doing 20/20 (alternating between 20 seconds of running and 20

VOLUNTEER PROFILE: NATALIE GERMANN

Youthline’s Communcations gal, Chloe Vaughan, caught up with Natalie, one of our amazing Youthline Helpline counsellors!

“Before I started volunteering in 2012, I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew that I wanted to find a way to try and make a difference in people’s lives, and give something back to society. Youthline has been the perfect place for that. Not only has it allowed me to get onto the phone lines and support people, but it has taught me so much about myself in the process.”

“The work that Youthline does is so inspirational and helpful to so many people. I feel lucky to be part of such an incredible organisation. I can’t wait to get more involved and to give back to Youthline as much as it has given to me.”

Natalie won the 2014 Youth Safe Award at the recent Auckland Council “I Am Auckland” Awards. Auckland Council is working alongside local boards and local youth councils to create local action for children and young people. This ceremony recognises individuals, organisations and young people for their work with youth. Congratulations, Natalie!

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THE EDGE PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCED

Youthline is excited to announce our new media partner – The Edge!

Youthline and The Edge are passionate about supporting young people to achieve their potential. We share a belief that kiwi youth are capable of great things, and we work with them to make change now.

We are so excited to partner with The Edge, an organisation that gets behind our vision of creating communities where young people thrive, and has a lot of fun along the way.

Where and When?

Christchurch: Hyde Park on Saturday 29th November

Auckland: Auckland Domain on Saturday 13th December

We need volunteers to help us out from around 5pm - 9pm collecting donations, selling merchandise, helping with stock and getting everything organised for the hundreds of volunteers! If you can help earlier in the day please let us know in the comments field when you sign up.

How do I sign up?

Register online at www.youthline.co.nz/christmasinthepark

Thanks and we look forward to seeing you there!

- The Youthline team

WE NEED YOUR HELP!This year Youthline is once again the charity partner at the iconic Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park events in Auckland and Christchurch. We are really excited to be teaming up with Coca-Cola to develop and support young people across New Zealand.

We are looking for volunteers to join us on the night in Auckland and Christchurch to raise awareness and much needed funds for Youthline and our services. Volunteers are the foundation of Youthline and this is a great opportunity to be part of a fantastic event! The more volunteers we get, the more we can represent Youthline amongst the thousands of people at Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park.

THANKS TWO HANDS TATTOO!As a community organisation, we always love seeing members of the community get together to raise money and support us! When Two Hands Tattoo in Auckland got in touch to say they were holding a charity flash day where all proceeds would go to Youthline, we were absolutely stoked. Check them out at www.twohandstattoo.com

We know they’re an incredibly talented bunch and it was pretty special to think they would donate their time to support us. We were even more excited to find out they raised over $1,000 (that’ll keep the Helpline running for almost twelve hours)!

A big thanks to Megan Blackwell of Blackroom Photography for the awesome pictures.

We want to thank our funders, who make the work we do with NZ youth possiblel Auckland Council Manurewa Local Board Fund l Auckland Council Otara Papatoetoe Local Board Fund l

l BlueSky Community Trust l Christine Taylor Foundation for Mental Health l COGS l Four Winds Foundation l Grassroots Trust l l Lotteries National Community Funding l Maurice Paykel Trust l Youthtown l

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The pilot of the Reach Out! Rise Up! text package has recently concluded with some smashing results. Youthline Support Centre team leader Amber Davies says the concept behind the text package came from a realisation that Youthline needed to extend the choices we offer young people for early intervention.

“It’s a combination of therapeutic intervention but much less intensive than having to come into counselling. We got statistically significant results (0.013 and 0.005 for you stats people) for the reduction of anxiety and depression. We are so excited about this and all the work we put into it has made a real difference for the young people involved.”

“The idea was to increase accessibility for young people using therapeutic intervention. So, those who don’t have transport or don’t want to have a face to face counselling relationship can get some skills to work through their thoughts and feelings. It will enable Youthline to offer a bridging service between early intervention and counselling, and aims to help young people with mild to moderate anxiety and/or depression. Across Youthline’s early intervention and face to face services, depression and anxiety are consistently in the top five issues young people present with.”

“There is therapeutic based evidence to what we are doing, but it’s on the young people’s terms, and they can choose how much they engage with the service. It is also quite cost effective because it’s not a high intensity intervention”, she adds.

The text package ran for ten weeks and the participants received three text messages a week based around a theme.

“It’s a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy, some mindfulness stuff, and goal setting,” says Davies. For example, on Monday they receive a psychological education message around normalising feelings and it aims to give them an idea about what the week is all about. Then Tuesday’s text message gives them a challenge to complete which is based on things we know help people to understand their thoughts and feelings. On Friday, the week is wrapped up with an inspirational quote which builds on the theme.

We are happy to announce that the package had statistically significant results for both depression and anxiety levels and that young people were overwhelming happy with the package, with 100% of participants thinking that other young people would benefit from the package.

Big thanks goes to the Social Media Innovations Fund for supporting us to complete the pilot.

TEXT COUNSELLING PILOT RESOUNDING SUCCESS

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Did you know you can donate online? Head to www.youthline.co.nz/donate

It costs $30 each time a volunteer helps one young person in NZ. To continue to provide our services to the community, we need your help!

MEET JARED STANFORD - YOUTHLINE SOUTHLAND’S NEW CO-ORDINATORJared Stanford (25) is Youthline’s new Southland Youth Worker. Jared is a trained social worker and has worked in leadership roles with young people in a wide variety of settings including in a therapeutic residential community for young people engaging in harmful sexual behaviours, a mental health inpatient unit and on a cruise liner.

He has volunteered previously with Youthline Central South Island so is already part of the wider Youthline whanau.

“I’m very excited to join the Youthline team. My passion is helping young people find meaning in their lives and develop personal growth through their experiences.”

He completed a Bachelor of Social Work at Canterbury University which he describes as perfect for the type of work that he is doing right now.

He says his study taught him to be more open minded when working with people from various backgrounds and broke down a lot of unconscious barriers.