Our vision is for every young person to reach their full potential in Aotearoa.
Our mission is empowering young people nationwide to be better New Zealanders through quality experiences.
Blue Light is a charity organisation that delivers and supports a multitude of youth programmes nationally and has been doing so for over 30 years.
Blue Light’s Life Skills programme is for young people aged 14-17 years and is run in partnership with the NZ Defence Force Youth Development Unit.
Up to 10 programmes are run each year in three locations across New Zealand –  Whenuapai, Trentham and Burnham.
Designed as a five-day, residential camp, young people learn essential life skills including:
Young people enjoy experiential recreational activities designed to challenge themselves, and learn trust and responsibility.
Participants in the programme can earn up to 12 NCEA credits – 4 level one and 8 level two.
Blue Light’s leadership camps are open to all year 10 and 11 students and are run in partnership with the NZ Defence Force Youth Development Unit.
young people learn key leadership qualities, including:
Young people enjoy experiential recreational leadership-building activities designed to help them develop leadership skills and competencies.
Participants in the programme can earn up to 14 NCEA credits – 12 Level 1 and 2 Level 2.
Blue Light’s Youth Leadership Voyage is tailored for young people aged 14 to 17 and is held in partnership with the NZ Sailing Trust. Young people get to sleep aboard, sail and explore the islands in the Hauraki Gulf while working as a team to navigate and sail a super-yacht.
The Blue Light Youth Driver Navigator programme is available in selected areas and is designed to help support young people to ultimately get their full driver’s licence.
It is especially designed for those young people who may not have access to the right support to be able to learn to drive, e.g. a vehicle or someone to teach them to drive.
Blue Light is committed to training learner drivers to become safer and more responsible drivers on our roads.
Blue Light in partnership with TV fishing celebrity and Blue Light Patron Graeme Sinclair, run a large number of ‘Kids Gone Fishin’ events around the country each year.
Kids Gone Fishin’ is a series of national family events based around fishing and outdoor activities.
The aim is to give kid’s a day of fun and to encourage families to spend quality time with their kids in healthy outdoor activities.
Events range in size from 50 to over 2,000 participants and family members.
Across New Zealand Blue Light works with its Blue Light branches to do a variety of community engagement. The Blue Light Obstacle Course (BLOK) is the latest community engagement programme and is a giant inflatable obstacle course, 33 metres long, that has been designed for all primary school children, regardless of ability, to easily participate in physical activity and have fun while doing so!
Inflatables were originally developed for children experiencing disability as it offered a way for children to play physically without hurting themselves, and to provide an accessible range of activity for all children regardless of issues of coordination, weight, or fitness.
Once at the desired location, the obstacle course is inflated, set up and supervised by Blue Light staff, local Police and Blue Light members. This includes ensuring appropriate numbers of children are on the obstacle course at any one time, and that children are engaging in ‘safe’ and ‘appropriate’ activity when upon the course.
Also involved in the programme are additional activities, such as tug of war rope, cargo nets for the young people to crawl under and planks to balance upon.
After everyone has had the chance to participate, schools can then choose to engage in competitive races with the young people participating alongside the local police.
Alongside the physical activities young people get to enjoy a BBQ lunch alongside Blue Light staff, local Police and Blue Light members.
A Blue Light mentor can have a profound impact on the life of a young person in many different ways.
They provide support, guidance, navigation and inspiration and help them to discover their potential to achieve their goals both short-term and long term.
Research shows that having a mentor can re-engage a young person with school, relationships and the community. Mentoring also increases their chances of young people finishing school or when older getting into training or finding employment.
Mentoring has been proven to improve a mentees overall wellbeing.
Blue Light works in partnership with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award to deliver the programme into disadvantaged communities, rural secondary schools and in partnership with Refugee groups and the Police.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award is delivered in four sections with young people doing physical activity, learning new skills, completing community service and doing overnight adventurous journeys through native forests.
Blue Light offers the practice and adventurous journey 2 night tramps for Bronze level.
Minimum group numbers apply to our tramping dates.
Blue Light has produced and distributed through schools and The Warehouse a number of informative resource guides for young people and their parents. These include; The ‘Parentsmart Handbook’ and ‘Streetsmart’ designed to help parents with teenagers by giving their parents access to up to date information. It’s a great ‘go to guide’ for parents needing a trusted resource/directory to find help with a whole range of issues facing our young people today.
The Kidsmart ‘Guide To Life’ is a handbook written specifically for year nine students and provides information and contacts for further help on a huge range of topics which may be of concern to young teens.
The ‘Streetsmart Guide’ is produced along the lines of our Kidsmart guide, but tailored toward Year 13 students about to leave home and school. Similar to Kidsmart but also includes information about budgeting, moving out, tenancy agreements, opening bank accounts and other things previously done by parents and caregivers.
Blue EDGE (Educate Develop Grow Empower) – An ‘in school’ programme of activity based experiential learning for young people between the ages of 14 and 18. Usually in groups of up to 20 for 8-10 weeks with two to three sessions per week. The programme consists of early morning tailored fitness programme, the provision of mentors and role models, communal breakfast, and inspirational guest speakers throughout the programme.
The final event is ‘The Longest Day’ a 12-hour period of various challenges, culminating in an awards ceremony and presentation.
A Key aspect of this programme is the involvement of local Blue Light Police officers.
The programme is aimed to help young people build self-esteem and confidence through an activity-based programme, provide advice and motivation, help develop long term goals and build positive relationships between young people, the Police and school community.
The PCT is an event run each year with teams of intermediate age students participating in a variety of mental and physical challenges.
Each year branches throughout New Zealand run local competitions to select their representatives to attend the National finals held at the Royal New Zealand Police college where one team will win the coveted National PCT Fear Factor Trophy and be crowned National Champions.
Teams are required to participate in a series of challenges including the ‘police car push’ as well as complete the Police Competence Test (PCT) – the obstacle course used in the entry exams for new police recruits.
BLAST (Blue Light Alternative Strategy for Teenagers) activities and workshops are largely focused on building trust and problem-solving skills in young people.
The objectives of these activities are to provide support and help young people to learn the skills that will help them to succeed in their endeavours.
Some of the key skills students learn through these are activities are;
Plus many more – all delivered in a fun activity-based workshop.
Blue Light is working in conjunction with Worksafe New Zealand delivering a Farm Safety activity programme to rural and semi rural primary school students throughout New Zealand.
The highly engaging programme was developed and designed by Blue Light for Year 3 to 6 students to improve attitudes to farm safety through engagement and participation in the programme both within the student’s school environment as well as working with their parents at home.
With the further support of ACC in partnership with Worksafe, the delivery of the programme will increase by over 200% in future years.
Blue Light Youth Service aims to assist youth aged 16 to 19 living in Auckland or Hamilton who are at risk of becoming not engaged in Education, Employment or Training.
The three target groups Blue Light Youth Services work with are:
Blue Light will work alongside youth to explore options that best suit them.
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