A Prime Minister once hailed it as a rare success. So why has this charity closed?

Former Prime Minister Bill English once hailed a charity as a rare success in reducing youth reoffending in South Auckland. That charity, Genesis Youth Trust, has now closed after failing to secure more Government funding.

A young Papakura woman had 42 criminal offences against her name by her mid-teens, including assault, dishonesty and family harm.

As a child, she had witnessed her parents fighting and chronic alcohol and drug abuse. Her daycare and then her school alerted authorities about signs of family harm.

After assaulting her mother and nana at age 14, she was referred by police in 2018 to the Genesis Youth Trust, a charity which uses early intervention programmes to reduce youth reoffending.

“She was angry at the world and wanted to fight everyone,” said Rob Woodley, a former police officer who founded the trust in Mangere. “She’d basically got to a point in life where she didn’t care anymore.”

The young woman – who cannot be named for privacy reasons – was provided a mentor as a positive role model; a social worker to tackle issues like housing and social factors; and a counsellor to unpack her mental health issues and problems within her family.

Two years into the programme, the young woman had not reoffended and had rebuilt her relationship with her mother (who was now clean). She had gained NZQA qualifications and was planning a future as a social worker or a teacher.

Woodley told the woman’s story in a presentation a few years ago, when the trust was celebrating a six-year programme for reducing reoffending among 600 young people in South Auckland.

On Friday, Woodley gave another speech: at the closure of the charity. Genesis Youth Trust has been told by the Government that it is unable to keep funding it. After 25 years, it has wound down, laid off its staff and is trying to find alternative placements for around 60 young participants.

“I’m heartbroken,” Woodley told Stuff. “I’m biased, you know. But I saw lives changed, I saw it with my own eyes. They become law-abiding citizens and they come back in their 20s and 30s and they say ‘I’ve got kids, I’ve got a job’.”

Government ministers and independent assessments tell another story: they say the trust’s model was expensive and unsustainable. They also say the trust had not taken up opportunities for more Crown funding and could have kept operating at a smaller scale with existing money.

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