Wraparound3

The success of Wrap-Around:

	The three local schools advise us that the students returning from Howpak Wrap-Around are successful in their schools (see fig 1. below—Referral Results Using Reintegration into Education as the Primary Goal’ for these results).



The report from Dr Chile is comprehensive and concludes “there is no doubt that the Wrap-Around programme is highly regarded in the community by the students, their parents/ caregivers, the school managers, members of the community and the community-based agencies that support the intervention work with these young people.” It also goes on to state that “given the high rate of successful outcomes of the Wrap-Around programme it behoves the Ministry of Education to support the Wrap-Around Trust to become fully established to meet the needs of the students, the schools and the communities of the Eastern Suburbs of the Auckland region.

Christine Mason, Principal of Riverhills School, “applauds the work Michele and Howpak Wrap-Around are doing with the hardcore at risk students.” (2008)

Referral Results Using Reintegration Into Education as the Primary Goal

Year

Number of Referrals

Number Reintegrating

Alternative Education

Tertiary Education Training

Police/

Residential Treatment

Left the Country

Exclusion

Mainstream

Correspondence/
Hospital school

No Definition

2002

Nil

2003

Nil

2004

Nil

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009YTD

Creative New Zealand is the national agency for the development of the arts in New Zealand, and invest s resources in New Zealand arts for the long-term benefit of New Zealanders. Creative New Zealand’s statutory purpose is to encourage, promote and support the arts in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

Creative New Zealand’s mandate is to support community and professional arts, and in doing so, they uphold the following principles:

	Participation, by supporting initiatives that encourage participation in the arts

	Access, by supporting the availability of projects of merit to communities or sections of the population that would otherwise not have access to them

	Excellence and innovation, by supporting activities of artistic and cultural significance that develop the creative potential of artists and art forms

	Professionalism, by maintaining and developing a professional arts infrastructure, both at national and community levels

Creative NZ, 2008)

Howpak Wrap-Around initiated ‘Maximum Exposure!’initiative was designed to focus on visual literacy, art and creative training and                  community support of local creative pursuit. The funding from Creative New Zealand allowed Howpak Wrap-Around to give access to a group of at-risk youth that may never have the opportunity to express themselves through such a vibrant medium.
Students were given the opportunity to learnthe ‘grammar’ of art, design and photography in a similar way to learning traditional literacy, but with results that are more personally meaningful and have a higher social exchange value than text-based literacy exercises.Wrap-Around believes that the students built social connectedness by working on the project,‘Maximum Exposure!’,the staff, relatives, friends and community.
One of the proposed themes were for the students to do a photo documentary series of a sibling or parent. This was a great pro-active opportunity for       participating youth and work experience partners.Wrap-Around trusts that this initiative fitted-well with many of Creative New Zealand’s strategies, as it aligns itself directly with education and welfare of healthy communities. The initiative provided a vibrant pro-active opportunity for   students and community to gain‘Maximum Exposure!’.
The support of Creative New Zealand assisted Howpak Wrap-Around to meet the operational and logistical funding that was needed to fully develop the initiative..