In March 2022, Keith Harrison died, in his 90th year. Keith was a co-founder of the Otago Youth Wellness Trust with his wife, Dame Pat, and supported her as the Trust grew and developed over the years, since its formation in 1996.

This year our thanks report is packed full of photos and stories about our rangatahi so that you can see the impact of your support.

Unfortunately, we still have cases waiting for caseworkers to be assigned in our wait room, so reluctantly, we are extending the halt in referrals for a further month until mid-October at this time.

With some reluctance, but out of necessity, we are putting a halt on new referrals into Otago Youth Wellness Trust case work, from today - August 16. We will review the situation in a month and keep you in touch.

Otago Youth Wellness held a wānanga manu tangata (bird man kite workshop) for one of our holiday programme days, led out by our case worker Anita Mitchell (Tainui, Ngāti Maniapoto), who is an occupational therapist (OT).

Otago Youth Wellness was borne out of the community and the support of the community continues to be crucial to ensuring we are able to help meet the needs of the young people we work with.

Our new team member, Mark O’Donnell is doing some exciting work with year 8 boys from three Dunedin schools.

One of our rangatahi, Ezra, chatted to the Daily Encourager about his story and journey through alternative education. Click to read!

The most amazing generosity and kindness saw Trust Manager Claire Ramsay at SkillSec to accept a donation of $10,000 from Leisa and Norm, the owners of the amazing training service

Work on the Trust’s whanau garden is now underway