Regional Commissioner's foreword

Welcome to the Ministry of Social Development’s Regional Plan 2009/2010 for the Central Region. We will continue to focus on helping New Zealanders lead better lives.

Our key priorities for the coming year are employment, helping young people to thrive, keeping kids safe and ensuring value for money.

While we’ve been fortunate to experience a long period of strong economic growth and sustained low unemployment in our region, the economic downturn will bring both challenges and opportunities this year. Therefore we have been positioning ourselves to respond quickly and effectively to support employers, individuals and families in difficult times.

We will continue to work hard with employers to enhance our local infrastructure and development opportunities, and to place people into work, education and training. We will place greater emphasis on developing our clients’ skills so they can seize their opportunities when the economy improves.

We will also look for opportunities to adapt and build on the strengths of our local economies and communities. We will do this by working with our Economic Development Agency partners, central and local government agencies, district health boards, training providers, community organisations, local iwi and employers. For example, we will work with our local industry and employer partners to find people with the right skills to meet their vacancy needs.
 
And we will continue to provide additional support for those people in need. In particular, we will build on the great work we have been doing with our children and young people. For example, we will deliver the Government’s Youth Opportunities and Fresh Start packages to help the young people in our region.

Family violence is an issue that affects the lives of many New Zealanders. This year we want to ensure our clients know what support and resources are available to them when they need help. We will do this through the Family Violence Intervention Programme and working with agencies such as Women’s Refuge and the Manawatu Abuse Intervention Network (MAIN) to help address family violence in our community.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the Ministry’s staff across the region for their hard work and dedication over the past year. I know that our people’s commitment will make a real and lasting difference this year to the lives of our clients, their families and our communities in the Central Region.

Penny Rounthwaite
Regional Commissioner
for Social Development