Our team had an exceptionally busy past few months and to best support our community and young people it is important to ensure we are looking after our own personal wellbeing through these navigational challenges that presents itself with COVID. This is why we have temporarily reduced our operation days for The Hangout Youth Centre and some members of the team taking well deserved annual leave breaks to refresh.

But this hasn't taken our work away from supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our rangatahi - and that is why we were excited to announce a collaborative partnership with Highlands Motorsport Park (HMPL) and the Cromwell Kahui Ako group which will see five years of funding from HMPL to bring into our community a Social Worker in Schools. We are already excited to announce we have a wonderful person already taking the helm for this role and settling into our organisation and we cannot wait to introduce her to our community in the coming weeks.

HMPL Chief Executive Officer Josie Spillane mentioned in an article that "We wanted to ensure that every child gets the right tools from the beginning to set them up for life, and ensure that as parents and a community we have those tools to support them too" with CYT being 100% on board with this and that supporting families to access assistance, support networks and information about their rights and entitlements, with a particular focus on mental health and education would be key.

At times we require to close The Hangout Youth Centre due to various reasons; these could include Public Holidays, Staff Professional Development, COVID impacts etc.

We aim to provide as much notice as possible to ensure you can plan ahead.
Below are up to date planned closures of The Hangout Youth Centre for April.

Friday 1st April - Temporary Weekly Closure
Tuesday 5th April - Temporary Weekly Closure
Friday 8th April - Temporary Weekly Closure
Tuesday 12th April - Temporary Weekly Closure
Friday 15th April - Good Friday (Public Holiday)
Monday 18th April - Easter Monday (Public Holiday)
Monday 25th April - ANZAC Day (Public Holiday)
Friday 29th April - Staff Wellbeing Day

Please Note: Due to the current COVID climate we may require closure for an extended period of time at short notice. We appreciate your understanding.

Welcoming Communities is a new programme supported by Central Otago District Council that aims to help newcomers feel more connected in their communities.

The Welcoming Communities group is working towards creating a plan that, with your input, will be designed to suit the unique needs of those new to Central Otago.

Please take a few minutes to share your experiences of being new to town so that our local communities can roll out the welcome mat and make everyone feel at home.

Have your say before 5pm, Friday 29 April.

Please note that this is a community notice and is not from Cromwell Youth Trust.
If you have any questions please contact the Welcoming Communities Team