COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND LEADERSHIP
City Care has a significant social impact. Providing services to over 1.5 million people and with approximately 1,000 employees, our business touches many communities and households throughout the country.
Pre-Apprentice Work Skills Programme
City Care's award-winning Pre-apprentice Work Skills Programme continues to be a key social initiative for the company. During the course of a year, trainees participate in a series of rotational placements covering the variety of trades available at City Care.
The programme focuses on the development of life skills and a strong work ethic as well as career pathways within the contracting industry. Trainees learn goal setting, communication and teamwork skills, conflict and stress management and budgeting skills.
City Care has put 150 people through the programme over the last six years, with around 90 of these people retained in our business. Of these 90, over two-thirds have gone on to pursue trade qualifications.
School Partnerships
As well as being our current and future customers, secondary school students are also our potential employees of the future. Each year, City Care supports National Work Choice Day where we host students from local secondary schools and introduce them to career opportunities within City Care. On these days, students are given the opportunity to participate in a number of practical work-related activities.
City Care continues to build on our partnerships with local secondary schools. These partnerships enable City Care to directly communicate to students and key influencers (teachers and parents), the value and attractiveness of trades as viable career options. City Care now has working partnerships with five schools - Christchurch Boys' High School, Lincoln High School, Papanui High School and Avonside Girls' High School in Christchurch and Tauranga Boys' College in the Bay of Plenty.
Rural Firefighting
City Care provides Christchurch City Council with rural firefighting capability and has done so for a number of years. A team of more than 100 staff trained to NZQA framework standards in rural fire suppression supports Christchurch City Council in fighting rural fires throughout Canterbury each year.
During the last year, the team spent 1,294 hours in training and 835 hours fighting fires, cover ing 11 fires in total.
Civil Defence and Emergency Response
The Civil Defence and Emergency Act 2002 requires local authorities to have working incident response plans and systems that can be activated in the event of a civil defence emergency. Detailed working knowledge of existing assets is a key requirement for emergency preparedness. To ensure this, a positive and proactive relationship between the asset owner and the asset service agent is essential.
Under all of our maintenance agreements, City Care is contracted to provide services in response to civil emergency events. This can range from fires, through to flooding, heavy snow and high winds. At any given time, we can mobilise more than 800 staff and a wide range of equipment nationwide in response to a civil emergency.
