Farewell to our 2023/24 Interns and hitting a significant milestone this year

 

2024 started with a roar for us! Over the last two months we had two events to celebrate; one farewell and the other a significant milestone.

We said goodbye to the seventh cohort of GHSL Summer Interns, 19 of whom completed their three-month placement across 16 public sector agencies located in Auckland and Wellington.

At the farewell event, the interns reflected on their experiences, presented their completed work and talked about their appreciation for how their agencies supported them in their first roles. The interns have been engaged in a diverse range of projects including Wellbeing initiatives, Critical H&S Risks, Data insights, H&S assurance, Capability building, Learning reviews and incident investigations.  Check out the intern’s cohort thank you video here. (external link)

 

We also celebrated a significant milestone this year, as this year’s cohort took our number of interns who have taken part in the programme up to 102 interns. This is a huge achievement for the team as we have had 30 agencies participating in the programme since 2017, with over 50% of the interns going on to gain employment in the public sector, with a number now in H&S advisor and senior advisor roles.

We marked this milestone by inviting our past and present summer interns to celebrate at a small event where we asked a few of our previous interns to talk to us about their career journeys and work stories since leaving the internship programme and share in a delicious celebratory cake.

The intern program has run for seven years now, which is an achievement in itself. Check out the testimonials below.  

 

A big thank you to all our agencies who have participated in this programme over the last seven years, who have enabled us to support the capability and development of our health and safety workforce across the public sector. 

 

Testimonial Quotes 

'The GHSL summer internship programme is a gateway to gain experience in the Health and Safety field within government organisations. It was a great way to understand how the health and safety profession works in a large organisation, the types of work that is done, the opportunities for growth and professional development, and working alongside people to foster positive health, safety, and wellbeing outcomes.  

The internship programme is an amazing initiative and beneficial to the public sector as it attracts new people and new ways of thinking into the growing industry. The health and safety industry is growing and requires competent individuals to support organisations to flourish in their health and safety, and this internship is an opportunity to support this'.

Rachel Morrison, FENZ Senior Advisor, Safety, Health, and Wellbeing

 

"In my time with New Zealand Defence Force, I have worked on multiple projects, whether that be auditing units on sites, looking at critical risks within the Airforce as well as looking at how the Airforce could adopt ISO45000 health and safety standards into their working practices".

Emma, New Zealand Defence Force, 2022/23 H&S Intern.

 

"I didn’t know my degree could lead to a career in HSW, but I thought the programme sounded like a great opportunity to put psychology theory into practice. And that’s all you need –to find something which interests you, and you might be surprised to see just how relevant your studies will be to your work. I have always wanted to apply my studies in a way that can help keep people safe, and it’s fair to say I haven’t been disappointed with my HSW internship.”

Zung Mai, 2022/23 Intern, working as H&S Advisor at Plunkett

 

Check out our Managers Testimonial from Naomi Hosted, Health and Safety Manager, Kainga Ora - Why her agency participates in this programme?