Explore careers

Useful experience for youth workers includes:

• voluntary work with youth, such as at a youth work agency, or sports coaching
• work that involves helping people, such as teaching, counselling, social work, community work or church work 
• work with an iwi or Māori community or social service, or with people from a variety of cultures.

Youth workers may do some or all of the following:

• build relationships with young people and their families/whānau and peers
• establish relationships with communities, schools, training providers and employers
• provide support, information and resources
• help young people connect with social services
• plan, deliver and evaluate programmes and events for young people
• write reports, prepare funding applications and manage budgets.

Good demand for youth workers

Demand for youth workers is good due to:

• more organisations recognising the importance of providing services to young people
• more youth workers being recruited into multi-disciplinary teams where people in a variety of roles work with young people
• a high turnover of youth workers creating vacancies.

Half of all youth workers are under the age of 35. 

According to the Census, 2,379 youth workers worked in New Zealand in 2018.

Volunteering can help you get into youth work

Youth work volunteering will give you hands-on experience and increase your chance of getting paid work.

Contact youth organisations directly or ask at your local volunteer centre. 

Types of employers varied

Youth workers may start with volunteer or casual work. 

They may work for:

• local and central government
  
• charitable or religious trusts and marae
• schools, education or community facilities and youth clubs
• live-in or justice institutions
• kaupapa Māori organisations.

Careerforce ITO

0800 277 486 - info@careerforce.org.nz - www.careerforce.org.nz

Ara Taihohi

04 802 5000 - admin@arataiohi.org.nz - www.arataiohi.org.nz

With further training, youth workers may move into social work, counselling or teaching roles.

• Social worker job information
• Counsellor job information
• Primary school teacher job information
• Secondary school teacher job information

Youth workers may specialise in working with Māori or other communities.

Youth workers need to be:

• good leaders and communicators who can relate to people of all ages and cultures
• good problem solvers who can remain calm in an emergency
• honest, ethical and impartial, and able to keep information private
• energetic and enthusiastic, with a sense of humour
• able to work well under pressure
• well organised.