Our Story & Our Approach
About us
The Straight Up Trust is a charitable non-profit organisation based in South Dunedin and more recently Brockville. We have been working with youth and families in the southern areas of Dunedin for over 20 years now.
If it is your aim, to be catalyst for transformational change within a community you can not be just a building or just a program. You need to be involved, constantly assessing how things could be better and responding to needs and culture. (J. Campbell)
The above quote catches the essence and objective of The Straight Up Trust. To serve the communities of Dunedin, responding to needs and culture, while helping to bring about positive community transformation through quality long term relationships.
We would love to hear from you. Please contact Marty if you have any questions or would like to know more contact us.
Our Approach
Long Term Relationships
People are not projects to be fixed or problems to be solved. Walking with a young person, often for many years (potentially from year 6 through to year 13) is one of the most powerful ways of seeing long term change.
Youth Focused
To build strong communities and positive change, we must first work to support the youth of our community. We are youth-focussed and connections with families are developed over time through trust, through Youth Clubs, through sports, camps, small groups and through mentoring.
Strength-Based
Some young people hear all their lived about how bad they are, or about what they are not good at (both at home and school). But we all know that we respond better to encouragement than despair, and research shows that young people in particular do best when helped to see what they are good at, and helped to do more of it.
Build Resilience
In Rock Solid we help build a sense of belonging, mastery, independence and generosity, which in turn leads to increased resilience and the ability to cope better with life’s inevitable ups and downs. Our aim is to help build emotional, social, spiritual and cultural resilience in our young people.
Role Models and Mentors
We have a core team of Youth Workers, Interns and support staff, all of whom are part-time. In addition we have an amazing team of over 30 volunteer leaders who work under our staff to provide mentors and role models. Many of these are tertiary students, who are able to challenge their mentees to dream big.
A Safe, Non-judgemental Space
We want to create a safe, non-judgemental relational space where young people feel loved and accepted, and are able to explore life values and grow.
A Christian Base
Over 50 years of youth research by the Search Institute [1] has proven 40 key assets for positive youth development. Of these six are related to positive values and spirituality. We are a non-denominational Christian organisation and this is reflected in our values and approach, but does not limit who we work with or can work alongside us.
[1] The Search Institute is an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to youth development research and resources, www.search-institute.org
Our Team
In addition to our Youth Workers, Interns and an army of volunteer leaders, we have support staff providing administrative and pastoral input, and help with fund-raising. We have a dedicated Board (Trust) currently led by Roly Scott, formerly the pastor of Caversham Baptist Church, who has a lifetime of serving the community in the South Dunedin area.
In total our work represents over 100hrs of volunteer time each week.
