David Ensor has always been drawn to roles that care for people.
His career began at the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), where he had 12 different jobs over the course of 12 years. In his final few months at MSD, he was thrown into emergency management when he was sent to Nelson to support and coordinate MSD’s emergency response to New Zealand’s biggest forest fire in 60 years.
He says his experience working with vulnerable people and communities encouraged him to look for roles that focused on helping others.
“I learned heaps in my time at MSD about resilience, partnerships, and relationships. And then it was time to start thinking about what else I wanted to do. A role came up in City Housing as the Operations Manager at the Council, and it seemed like the perfect next step. A few years later, I became the manager of the Connected Communities team.”
David looks after a mighty team of 47 people who look after community partnerships, harm reduction and prevention programmes, community/city safety, CCTV, Hāpai Āke, funding and emergency welfare.
David says that this type of work happens in the background, and not many people are aware of what the Council’s role is when it comes to safety and community services in the city.
“Wellingtonians really care, but most people think that Council are emergency services or should be able to support every vulnerable person, but our role is to enable services to happen across the city so people can have access to these networks through partnerships and funding.”