Starfish

Starfish Project is a community focused support agency that offers young people support and counselling for a wide range of primary mental health care needs, including anxiety and depression, emotional management, alcohol and substance abuse, and social or family difficulties.

Starfish was created to address the gap for the growing number of young people in our community who are unable to access services to help address their mental health well-being.  While services are available for young people with acute needs, we found young people who did not meet that criteria had limited community resources available to them.

Starfish strives to provide a solution to help reduce the barriers that young people face trying to access the help they need, and to reduce the stigma around mental health wellbeing and addictions.

Starfish works alongside a number of Government agencies to maximise their ability to reach out and support young people and their whanau.  As part of this, Starfish provides an Alternative Education Programme in central Taranaki. Alternative Education works with young people who have been excluded from mainstream education, striving to reintegrate them into the education system where possible. This is not always the best outcome for the young person, so Starfish provides an alternative education solution when traditional educational environments are not feasible.

We proudly support the work of the Starfish Project through a sponsored broadband connection.

Website: starfishservices.org.nz/