The Warrnambool-based mother-of-three is a mentor support officer covering a vast district from the South Australan border to Apollo Bay and Colac and north to Hamilton.

"I really enjoy getting onto work sites and meeting the apprentices and employers," she said.

"As a mother of my own teenagers I understand how they tick.

"My role is to identify problems and make sure they don't develop into big problems.

"Sometimes they just don't like the trade or just get lost in the complexity of the apprenticeship program.

"A lot of them are just out of school."

Under her watch are more than 230 apprentices and the numbers are expanding.

She started in her new role on July 1 with Westvic Staffing Solutions and Western District Employment Access which jointly won a 12-month federal government contract to mentor south-west apprentices under the age of 19 to reduce the drop-out rate.

It's an extension of the government's Kickstart program which gives employers incentives of up to $3500 to hire young apprentices across a broad range of skills.

According to Westvic operations manager Brendan Hawkins the first 100 days of an apprenticeship was critical in reducing the drop-out rate.

"If they get through that they generally stay on," he said.

"We try to keep the drop-out rate under 10 per cent.

"Hopefully we'll have almost 400 new apprentices signed up by November.

"This is a unique program and our organisations jointly are the only ones in the south-west to have the government-funding mentoring service.

Ms Best visits new apprentices in their workplace every six weeks for the first six months and then every eight weeks in the next six months.

On her list is first-year cabinetmaker Ryan Bacon who works at the 2 Pak Factory in Warrnambool.