Employment Support

Ages 15 – 24

Youth Inspire’s employability programmes help our Rangatahi learn skills that will help them get a job and keep a job.

Developed by COMET, the Youth Employability Programme (YEP) provides learning activities to build the key competencies employers have told us they want their young workers to have.

Youth Inspire runs Employability Programmes for ages 15 to 24
All programmes run 4 days a week Monday - Thursday



Inspiring Youth futures - He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) 2025
14 Week Programme
(Ages 15 - 21, for Community Clients and MSD Referrals )
Programme Date:
March 24th 2025 - June 26th 2025 (15 Placements)

Community Coaching - HPR 2024
12 Week Programme
(Ages 18 - 24, for clients on the Job Seekers benefit, MSD Referrals)
Programme Date:
October 7th 2024 - January 30th 2025 (25 Placements)


Employment Placement Programme (EPS)2024/2025
3 times a year for 6 to 8 weeks
(Ages 18 -24, for clients on the Job Seekers benefit, MSD Referrals)
Programme Dates:

August 19th - 3rd October 2024 (20 Placements)
November 4th - 13th December 2024 (20 Placements)
February 24th 2025 - 16th April 2025 (20 Placements)

Please make contact for more information

We can provide assistance towards any certificates you need to be successful in your work including First Aid

HPR TEAM

EPS TEAM

Employability Skills

Skills are applied in work experience placements. Local businesses provide work experience where new skills are developed, teamwork can be practiced, and references can be added to CVs.

  • Self-management is your ability to regulate behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in a way that better serves you and your work. Developing self management is not easy but it’s worth doing. As you improve your self management skills, you’ll grow naturally as a leader.

  • Willingness to learn is desire, wish or readiness to acquire new knowledge and develop skills. It’s a key behaviour employers love and it shows a person’s commitment to improving their work performance and staying ahead of modern trends.

  • Sometimes the work environment can present unique challenges and difficulities. Resilience is the ability to overcome and recover from these challenges and will equip our young people to more effectively handle stress

  • Critical thinking is the vital skill of questioning, analyzing and evaluating objective information to form reliable judgements and actions. We teach our young people to consider the credibility of evidence to empower them to make better decisions

  • Communication in the work place is not only vital for productivity, collaboration and trust among employees and managers, it is an essential life skill. We teach our young people different communication styles and empower them to actively improve their communication skills.

  • Teamwork is the collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal and is an essential employability skill even if the job role is largely independent. Working together as a team helps maintain an enjoyable work environment and build strong employee relationships

  • A positive attitude is a state of mind that focuses on the potential in things, situations and yourself. It means being optimistic, hopeful and creative about finding ways to improve the situation. It’s a cornerstone of willpower - something that is created rather than found.

Gemma - Youth Advisor for Youth Inspire

“It's an absolute privilege to be able to support our local young people, they deserve as many opportunities as we can provide so they can achieve their goals.”

Other services

As well as helping rangatahi with employability skills and certificates, we work on:

  • CV and cover letter writing

  • Job seeking

  • interview clothing and preparation

  • Support for mental wellbeing

Se also partner with local organisations and individuals to run additional workshops such as:

  • Interview preparation

  • Budgeting

  • Tax / IRD

We can also help arrange PPE as needed, assist in finding your way to work or even enroll you in a barista course!

We also organise volunteer opportunities so rangatahi can feel good about giving back to the community.

  • Jay - From tutor to baker

    Jay completed our programme in August 2022. His passion was music and with the help of the Goodtime Music Academy (GTMA) he completed his work experience which he loved so much he ended up volunteering once his placement had finished. He was super shy to start with but ended up connecting and engaging with the young people on the GTMA programme which helped him hone his social and communication skills.

    He then gained his Barista Certificate with Trade School Kitchen and during the job seeking phase of the Youth Employability Programme was successful in getting offered an apprenticeship as a Baker with Janus Bakery where he is still currently working - nice one Jay!

  • Ronin - Self development

    Ronin was initially very nervous and guarded when he came into the Youth Inspire office to talk about our Learner Driver Licence course. We spoke to him about our Youth Employment Programme and after thinking about this he committed to do it. He very nervous at the start of the course and didn’t want to partake in all the activities but he soon made friends and became comfortable with his classmates and tutors he became a leader amongst the group.

    His work experience was at Carboglass which gave him a huge confidence boost as they got him working on a variety of jobs including disassembling their race car. His tutor Gemma says “this gave him courage, motivation and commitment to push for his dream”

    Job seeking gave him the opportunity to further connect with others during which time he proactively applied to Z and was offered a role. He notes that work has given him more confidence, he loves interacting with customers and has been given more hours at work.

    “I absolutely enjoy everything that’s happened for me this year, thanks Youth Inspire! I am a changed man; I feel brand new.” – Ronin

  • Catherine - business and painting

    Catherine completed the Youth Employability Programme in August 2021 with dreams of someday running her own business. She decided she wanted to learn administration skills and we placed her in work experience with Allied Security to lean all things administration (including some HR processes, accounts etc). Her confidence grew along with her skills as she found this valuable experience.

    During her job seeking phase it became apparent she also wanted to be a painter - so we connected her with one of our other local partners - JSL Renovations who took her on as their only female painter at the time. She has since fallen in love with the job and the company and has been there ever since.