Farewell to our 2020/21 Interns

Interns with Vincent Arbuckle, Deputy Director General, MPI.

On Friday, 26 February, we said goodbye to our nine 2020/21 Government Health and Safety Interns which marked the end of their time with one of eight different agencies that participated this year.

Our farewell ceremony is an important part of our programme as it gives our interns the opportunity to reflect on what they have learnt over the last three months and formally thank their managers,agencies and the Government Health and Safety Lead for their internship experience.  

It also provides the interns an opportunity to showcase each of their specific agency projects they had to complete within the 14-week internship.  This year the projects ranged from reviewing policies, training and analysing data to shape material relating to fatigue management, conducting risk assessments faced by staff working from home, to analysing the agencies health and safety risk profile, specifically looking at psychosocial risk and how could be managed through a matauranga Māori lens.

The interns also spoke about how the internship programme and working with health, safety, and wellbeing professionals enabled them to apply the theory they learnt at university into meaningful practices within their workplace environments. The interns decided to produce and edit a video to outline their experiences to showcase Health, Safety and Wellbeing as a  future career.  Check out the 2020/21 Intern video.

It was sad to say goodbye, but we wish this talented bunch all the best for their future careers.