We are very proud to announce that Kevin Blogg, our founder and patron, has become a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2016 New Year’s honours. This is a very well-deserved award and acknowledges the years of work Kevin has put into assisting people with disabilities find paid employment.

Since 1996, when Kevin developed a service to assist people who live with mental illness to get paid employment, he has made a huge contribution to the community of Canterbury. His vision that people with disabilities of any sort, be that physical, mental, intellectual, social or psychological, are part of society and keen and able to contribute to society by being included in the paid workforce has been put into practice through the work he has completed. This is particularly so in the establishment of Catapult Employment Services Trust which started off with Kevin working on his own providing the service. With perseverance and the belief in people’s abilities, Kevin built that service up and it is now one of the leading supported employment services in Canterbury. Catapult has assisted over 1,200 people into paid work over this time. Now retired, Kevin is the Patron of Catapult.

Kevin has also contributed to the Canterbury region in his work with disadvantaged children in his voluntary role as manger of the Blogg Trust, which distributes over $100,000 a year to support vulnerable children to achieve their goals. He has also contributed to the advancement of services for people with disabilities on New Zealand as a whole as he continues to mentor others in the industry and lead by example. He has been awarded a Fellowship of the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association, Australia and New Zealand, in recognition of his work in assisting people with disabilities into employment.

The services Kevin has established have played a major part in the lives of many people, people living with disability, and children facing hardship would count in the thousands. The services he developed continue to operate successfully today and provide an invaluable service to the vulnerable people of our society. Kevin has been very positive of the value of supported employment and very persistent and this is why the services he developed became so effective. The fact that he has been successful in setting up these services and that they are sustainable over a decade later shows how his achievements in this area stand out above and beyond that of their peers. He is seen a as leader in the supported Employment industry and has spent many hours mentoring others.

In addition to the services he has set up, he spends many hours supporting and mentoring individuals in his own time. He spends considerable amounts of his own time ensuring that he gets good value for money when administering funds from the Blogg Charitable Trust. He has a natural compassion for people and actively pursues ways to assist those in need with his own unique blend of energy, enthusiasm, compassion and the belief in people.

As the Manager at JobConnect (ComcareTrust) between 1999 and 2002, he developed and established a service to provide people with mental illnesses, to provide support towards finding and maintaining paid employment. This service now has Ministry of Social Development contracts with eleven full time staff.

During 1996-1999 Kevin was the Work programmes Development manager at Comcare Charitable Trust and was responsible for all aspects of marketing the Work Programmes including development and management of new initiatives and services. In this capacity he developed a client programme for training and support towards achieving employment related goals. He also developed strategic alliances with community groups and the business community and liaised with community organisations and service providers including orientation to and/or marketing of Comcare Trust to the benefit of clients.

For the last eleven years Kevin has managed the Blogg Charitable Trust, which is a member of Philanthropy NZ, where he has the responsibility to assess funding applications and distribute funds to the disability and children’s charities in Christchurch, applying $100,000 plus per year.

Kevin was also a founding trustee of Reunite Canterbury which was set up to help support the reunification of refugee families. (Retired 2012)

• Kevin is a Fellow of the Recruitment and Consulting Services of Australia and N Z (FRCSA)
• In 2009 Received the Leadership award from the Association of Supported Employment NZ
• 2008 – Recognised as a Community hero in The Press