roles and responsibilities

what you have to do as a youth coach

Youth coaches provide a wraparound, intensive service for our young people to help get them on track for study, training or work-based learning and to guide them towards achieving their goals.

Working with young people receiving payments

When a youth coach is working with a young person receiving Youth Payment, Young Parent Payment or a young partner, they need to support them to achieve their study, training and wellbeing goals, meet their obligations, and manage their money responsibly.

Working with Youth Service NEET young people

When a youth coach is working with a young person in the NEET service, they need to support them to achieve their study and training goals and to address obstacles that may impact their overall wellbeing.

applying for financial assistance

Youth coaches help young people with their applications for financial assistance and supplementary assistance. They need to be aware of the types of assistance available so that they can make sure young people receive their full and correct entitlement (FACE).

Note: If a young person is coming from Oranga Tamariki care, work with their social worker or transition worker to make sure that there is a smooth transition between the services.

enrolling young people in Youth Service NEET

Youth coaches should enrol a young person within 90 days of accepting their NEET referral.

Youth Service NEET is a voluntary service. Young people need to sign a consent form to take part. You need to make sure they understand what they’re agreeing to when they sign the enrolment form, in particular, they need to understand:

that they need to understand what taking part in the service involves, and
that in agreeing to participate in the service, requires them to agree for their information to be shared between us the Ministry of Social Development, their Youth Service provider, schools, and other agencies.

You'll need to upload the young person’s signed consent form to ART.

planning to reach goals

You'll work with young people to make a plan to improve their wellbeing, achieve their goals, meet their obligations, and get an education that leads to a sustainable job and an independent future. Each young person's plan should be tailored to what's going on in their life – addressing their barriers, and lead to a career that will be good for them.

Remember to get young people to sign their Youth Service plan each time you review it.

Complete the initial Youth Service plan when they enter the service

The initial youth service plan will include a needs assessment and a plan for how the young person will meet their obligations and achieve their goals.

It should include information about their current circumstances and barriers, what other services or interventions they’ll need, things they’d like to work towards and – most importantly – it should be realistic and achievable.

Review their plan at least every 90 days

To keep on track, you'll make smaller goals in their Youth Service plan and review the plan at least once every 90 days. Here you'll also be able to readjust plans that aren't working anymore, and find ways to work on barriers that the young person comes up against.

Complete their exit youth service plan before they leave the service

An exit plan should help young people transition smoothly from Youth Service to the next phase of their lives.

It should identify what the young person needs to successfully shift into a job, study or training when they are preparing to leave the service. It's also a space for self-reflection, looking at what they want to work on next, and looking at the wider things that'll help them be independent.

Exit Youth Service plans should include things like:

Next steps (details of further study, work, etc)
Qualifications and certificates they’ve gained
Current CV
Support people
A checklist of things that they should have (including a Bank account, IRD number, ID, an email address, a doctor, a licence, etc).

contacting the young person

Contact needs to be a conversation or two-way correspondence.

Stay in regular contact with the young person to make sure they are on track to meet their goals and to see if they need any support to meet them or to address any other problems they are having.

How often you need to contact the young person

You have to be in contact with the young person at least once every:

30 days – by phone, text or face-to-face.
90 days – face to face.

This is the minimum – if they need more support to keep on track with their goals, improve their wellbeing, and do the things they need to receive payments, you should make a plan to be in touch with them accordingly.

Remember to record all your contact history – including contact methods and conversation details in ART.

What to do when you can’t contact the young person

Communication goes both ways. The young person is obliged to be in regular contact with you, and to let you know if their contact details have changed. This is why it’s important to keep track of times you’ve attempted to contact the young person but haven’t been able to.

If you can't get in touch with a young person, you should try to contact them in at least three different ways across at least three working days.

If you still can't get in touch with them after this:

For young people in the NEET service, you should consider exiting them to make space for another young person to benefit from your support.
For young people receiving payments you should initiate an obligation failure (engagement with you is one of the things they need to do to receive payments from MSD).

coaching, mentoring and guiding

As the young person’s coach, you need to be on their side. Encourage and support them to be socially connected and healthy. Equip them with practical life skills, and guide them to make good decisions. It’s your job to advocate for the young person and help them overcome any barriers standing between them and a bright, independent future.

Some of the things you should be doing to support young people include:

making sure they’re safe and well
referring them for any treatment and counselling they might need
giving them parenting and budgeting advice
helping them meet their obligations (the things they need to do to receive payments)
making sure they're paying reasonable accommodation costs
talking to them about the benefits of approved Early Childhood Education services
getting them enrolled with a doctor and dentist
supporting them to engage with Family Planning and Family Reconciliation Counselling (where appropriate)
making them aware of payments and services they may be eligible for
encouraging them to take part in events, activities and social gatherings
getting them signed up to and using MyMSD.

recording and informing

You'll need to use ART to keep young people’s profiles up to date and to make tasks for the Youth Service Support Unit (YSSU). ART is the client management system for Youth Service and should contain all relevant information about young people.

You are responsible for capturing information, uploading documents, and maintaining young people’s profiles by inputting their needs and activities. You'll need to make sure young people are doing the things they need to do to receive payments (meeting their obligations), and make sure they’re achieving their milestones and outcomes as they agreed to in their Youth Service plan.

Update ART every time you have contact and activities with the young person and notify YSSU immediately about any changes in a young person’s circumstances that may affect their payments or entitlements.

For young people receiving payments

You'll need to let YSSU know the details of benefit redirections for the young person's basic costs including their accommodation, bills and any other lawful debts.

Things you have to manage in ART:

updating client details
transferring the client to another provider if they move
creating needs
creating, editing and completing activities
sending tasks to YSSU and responding to these if required
reviewing client notifications
adding file notes
uploading documents
recording when administration, milestone goals have been met
viewing client histories.

Needs and Sub-needs in ART

Activities in ART

wider responsibilities of youth coaches

As a youth coach, you should be well-connected to your community. You should actively develop and maintain positive working relationships with community services and organisations, including the Ministry of Justice, Department of Corrections, Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Education, schools, family and whānau, iwi, training providers and employers in your area.

These community connections will enable you to provide a more effective wraparound service to young people and better guide them.

the role of msd

There are lots of aspects to the Youth Service. Here are the MSD teams and roles that also play a part in keeping the service running.

national youth service team

The function of the National Youth Service team is to:

be responsible for the performance of Youth Service at a national level in achieving education, training, work-based learning and employment outcomes
develop, design and implement changes to Youth Service
work with MSD policy and business units to advance the interests of the service and achieve outcomes
oversee enhancements to systems, policies, processes and procedures
communicate significant changes that may impact the providers and young people
work with other MSD business units (including Ministers Offices, CE and DCE Office) to manage risks and requests for information
build youth coach capability through the development and delivery of inductions, reflections, coaching and learning needs analysis
evaluate effectiveness of learning by taking on a continuous improvement culture
work collaboratively with YSSU to identify trends, areas where we can make changes to improve the experience for young people, and learning and development gaps.

yssu

YSSU is the MSD team responsible for managing the information of young people in Youth Service.

YSSU is your main contact for things related to supporting an individual young person.

YSSU are responsible for:

referring young people receiving payments (including Youth Payment, Young Parent Payment, and young partners of a main beneficiary) to Youth Service providers
receiving and screening applications
assessing entitlement and processing applications for Youth Payment, Young Parent Payment and other financial assistance from MSD
processing all changes in circumstances that impact a young person’s eligibility for assistance
monitoring the information youth coaches enter into ART
providing advice, support and clarification on ART processing requirements, and MSD procedures, policy and processes
actioning transfers between providers
evaluating Service Level Intensity (SLI) rating changes for NEET young people when requested by providers
managing manual referrals for NEET young people, including assigning the NEET Service Level Intensity (SLI) rating for a NEET young person based on information supplied by the Provider.

regional contracts manager

The Regional Contract Manager's primary role is to maintain the relationship with providers, including:

reviewing and verifying reports produced via ART
releasing payments to providers in a timely manner
monitoring performance of providers in their region
monitoring the quality of the provider's service to young people in the region
working with Youth Service providers and YSSU to resolve issues.

contact centre

MSD contact centre responsibilities include:

directing calls to YSSU when young people call, including for screening purposes
providing advice and guidance for young partners
referring young people to their Youth Service provider for financial assistance.

service centre

MSD service centre responsibilities include:

accepting forms or documents that are brought to the centre
scanning and uploading forms or documents, and assigning them to YSSU
assisting young people to use the self-service kiosk
testing and administering entitlement for emergency hardship assistance
interviewing the young person if the Youth Service provider is not able to meet the minimum standards or if IT systems are down
processing the transition to a main benefit if a young person approaches the service centre
managing the Youth Service delivery where the Youth Service provider is at capacity or a significant event occurs and the Youth Service provider's premises is unable to operate (for example, after a natural disaster).

The Service Centre should help any new applicant who needs hardship assistance before they have been referred to a Youth Service provider.