There’s also progress being made with growing the mental health and addiction workforce. The latest intake into Massey University’s Te Rau Puawai programme was last week. Through Budget 19, the Ministry has funded 46 additional bursaries that help Māori students with their studies to become mental health professionals.  A total of 120 people were awarded bursaries this year.

Last week, I joined a virtual panel discussion about women, leadership and mental health as part of the Australasian TheMHS Conference - Balancing the System. The panel comprised of myself, Fiona Stanley (Patron, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research), Robyn Shields (Psychiatrist in Training and Former NSW Deputy Mental Health Commissioner), and Fay Jackson (General Manager of Inclusion at Flourish Australia).

It was a privilege to be part of a panel with such inspirational women and hear their stories of leadership and their personal reflections on their experiences as female leaders working in the mental health sector.

I’ve also been busy over the last few weeks visiting some of our partner organisations in Auckland, the Bay of Plenty and Southland. You can read more below about the great work happening in Southland in rolling out new youth services and integrated primary mental health and addiction services.

While in Auckland, I was pleased to meet with the chief executives of the four national mental health workforce development centres Te Pou, Werry Centre, Le Va and Te Rau Ora. Each of these organisations has a large work programme to grow and develop the health workforce and I appreciated the opportunity to engage on our respective priorities for 2021.

I also visited Youthline with two members of my team, Jo Chiplin (Group Manager, Primary and Community Wellbeing) and Segina Te Ahuahu (Principal Advisor, Māori). I really enjoyed meeting with and hearing from people delivering services for young people. It was inspiring to hear from staff about their personal journeys – starting as Youthline volunteers and now working as paid mental health professionals.

A visit to Homecare Medical gave me the opportunity to meet and thank a number of people working on the mental health and addiction text and phone services. It was lovely to see the faces and names behind the 1737 logo. I also met with the Chief Executive at the Mental Health Foundation to discuss some of our upcoming priorities and challenges and hear about their work.

I was impressed with the dedication and collaboration shown by all the service providers. To achieve the kind of transformation we need with New Zealand’s approach to mental health and addiction, we need to work together well for collective impact. Everyone’s commitment to achieving positive outcomes and playing a role in the transformation was heartening.

Visiting the team at Youthline including Chief Executive, Shae Ronald (second from right)

Ngā mihi nui

Toni

New nationwide funding of mental health services for Rainbow youth

The Prime Minister and Minister of Health announced on Sunday a $4 million funding package to boost mental health services for Rainbow communities, with an emphasis on providing more support for young people. The $4 million package will roll out over four years.

$3.2 million of the funding is to expand services for young Rainbow New Zealanders. A procurement process for these expanded supports from either individual organisations or collaborative partnerships will be run in the coming months.

The remainder of the package will be allocated to topping up the existing Rainbow Wellbeing Legacy Fund that was established as an acknowledgement of those New Zealanders who were convicted for homosexual acts before the law was changed in 1986.

The Fund was launched in 2019 and last year seven initiatives received support, with the impacts already being felt by Rainbow New Zealanders only a few months after funding agreements were established.

Please keep an eye on our updates and the GETS website for more information and to take part in the RFP.

Welcoming the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission

The inaugural Board of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. L to R: Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath, Sunny Collings, Kevin Hague, Hayden Wano, Taimi Allan, and Alexander El Amanni.

A significant milestone was reached last Tuesday, with the Ministry of Health holding a pōwhiri at Pipitea Marae in Wellington to officially welcome the inaugural board members of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, which was established on 9 February.

The event was hosted by the Ministry of Health, Deputy-Director General of Māori Health, John Whaanga, with the Minister of Health, Hon Andrew Little, Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, with senior Ministry office holders in attendance.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission will perform a broad role in transforming Aotearoa New Zealand’s approach to mental health and wellbeing, contribute to better and more equitable mental health and wellbeing outcomes for all people in New Zealand.

It will provide system-level oversight of mental health and wellbeing and hold the Government of the day and other decision makers to account for the mental health and wellbeing of people in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Commission will play an important role in ensuring the voices and perspectives of priority populations, such as tangata whenua, Pasifika peoples, refugees and migrants, rainbow communities, rural communities, disabled people, veterans, prisoners, young people, older people, children experiencing adverse childhood events, and children in State care, are heard.

It will also look at how services and systems can improve the wellbeing of people living with mental distress and/or addiction, and their whānau.

The new Commission board members bring a wealth of knowledge in mental health and wellbeing, as well as governance experience, to the table, and is chaired by Hayden Wano, who also chaired the board of the Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. Hayden brings over 40 years’ health sector experience in mental health, community, and medical services. He is Chief Executive of Tui Ora Limited, a Taranaki-based Māori development organisation and provider of social and health services.

The other members appointed to the board are:

• Kevin Hague who also served as a board member on the Initial Commission and is the Chief Executive of Forest and Bird. He was previously Executive Director of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation and Chief Executive of the West Coast District Health Board, as well as having parliamentary experience.
• Sunny Collings who is the Chief Executive of the Health Research Council, and has worked as a researcher and practising clinician for over 25 years
• Taimi Allen who is Chief Executive of Changing Minds, a not-for-profit organisation operated entirely by those with personal experience of recovery from mental distress and/or addictions.
• Alexander El Amanni who is a Lead Addiction Advisor for Kāhui Tū Kaha, a Ngāti Whātua mental health and housing services provider, and brings a depth of experience in mental health and addiction services.
• Jemaima Tiatia-Seath who served as one of the six panellists in the Government Inquiry into mental health and wellbeing. She is Co-Head of School at Te Wānanga o Waipapa, School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland, with expertise in Pasifika mental health, and suicide prevention and postvention.

Outgoing Mental Health Commissioner, Kevin Allan, from the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, acknowledged the passing of monitoring mental health and addiction services and advocating for their improvement to the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission.

HDC continues to act as an independent watchdog for people’s rights when using health and disability services, resolving complaints, and holding providers to account for improving their practices at an individual and system-wide level. People who want to make a complaint about the care they or others have experienced at a mental health and addiction service should still contact the HDC.

“The new Board is committed to pressing forward and continuing to advocate for a holistic wellbeing approach to be embedded across all Government services, the community sectors, and the wider system,” says Chair, Hayden Wano.

Mr Wano says that people with lived experience, whānau, communities, and priority groups will be at the centre of everything the Commission does.

“Understanding that transformation will require everyone working together to achieve our goal of better and equitable mental health and wellbeing outcomes for all people in Aotearoa, we pledge ourselves as a Board to leading by example.”

Find out more

Southern DHB making great progress in rolling out new mental health services

Visiting WellSouth (L to R) Jodie Black, (Implementation Lead, WellSouth), Barb Long (CEO, Corstorphine Baptist Community Trust), Toni Gutschalg, Paulien Leijnes (Practice Manager, Broadway Medical Centre), Chanél Pienaar (Healthy Lifestyles Manager, Sport Otago), Andrew Swanson-Dobbs (CEO, WellSouth) and Aroha Metcalf.

Toni Gutschlag, Acting Deputy Director-General, and Aroha Metcalf, Chief Advisor Māori, recently visited Dunedin to meet with some of the teams who are delivering mental health services across the Southern region.

The team at WellSouth – who are leading the rollout of the integrated primary mental health and addiction services – report that the rollout of services has been progressing well, with enthusiasm from many of the new sites for having Health Improvement Practitioners and/or Health Coaches/Support Workers join their practices. Most importantly, the team are already seeing what a positive impact the services are having on the people of Otago and Southland.

Toni and Aroha met with members of the team from WellSouth and partners including the Corstorphine Baptist Community Trust, Broadway Medical Centre, PACT, and Sport Otago.

While in town, they also spent time with the team at Adventure Development, who are delivering youth mental health and addiction services across the region. The team there showed passion and commitment to ensuring that rangatahi receive the best possible supports and also shared heart-warming stories of positive change for young people and whānau enabled through the services.

The visits also provided the team at Southern DHB to share some of the unique challenges they face due to their geographical spread and workforce capacity. Toni and Aroha acknowledged there are difficulties but are looking forward to continuing to work together to find solutions building on their successes so far.

Visiting Adventure Development. (L to R) Clive McArthur (Chief Executive/Psychologist), Toni Gutschlag, Andrea Moore (Counsellor), Alice Stocker (Counsellor), Elena Holdaway (Occupational Therapist).

Bursaries helping to grow the Māori mental health workforce

Some of the students who attended the hui last week

Over 120 Māori students who have received bursaries for their mental health studies were welcomed at two-day hui at Massey University in Auckland last week.

The bursaries are one way to ensure that Māori can be supported by Māori in mental health roles, so the Ministry provides funding for bursaries to help build the Māori workforce and encourage working in mental health. An increase of 46 bursaries for this programme is part of the Budget 19 investment into improving mental health and addiction outcomes.

With an average pass rate of 95 per cent, the programme has achieved academic success for its students, but more importantly has had a far reaching impact on supporting tangata whaiora (people seeking wellness) across Aotearoa New Zealand.

The recipe for success of this programme is that it doesn’t just provide financial support. There is a team who also provide active student support, framed within a Māori context.

“From the outside people might think the main reason for the programme’s success is the financial support, but over time we have realised that’s not the most important thing. It’s really the pastoral care that we are able to provide in a Māori way,” says Professor Te Kani Kingi, Chair of the Te Rau Puawai Board.

The programme covers a wide variety of professionals from mental health nurses to clinical psychologists and social workers. Study can be undertaken via distance learning, meaning it offers flexible learning opportunities for both recent school leavers and those wishing to enter a new field later in their working life.

In addition to the Te Rau Puawai bursaries, the Ministry also funds scholarships for Pasifika students who pursue a career in mental health and addiction, and there are also approximately 800 new places per year funded for Māori and Pasifika cultural competency training for the existing mental health and addiction workforce.

Read the announcement

More information about Te Rau Puawai

New campaign from 1737 encourages people to call if the ‘Struggle got real?’

The team at the mental health tele service 1737 have launched a new advertising campaign that aims to get Kiwis to consider calling 1737 if they are struggling.

In particular, it encourages people who’ve never needed (or thought they needed) counsellor support to call for a free, confidential chat to help them deal with some of the challenges we all face from time to time that might have been exacerbated by COVID-19.

Campaigns like this are an important part of public wellbeing promotion that helps people understand that there are things they can do to look after their wellbeing and that of others too. Other Ministry-funded campaigns like Getting Through Together and more targeted campaigns run by Te Hiringa Hauora/the Health Promotion Agency, also support this sense of self-agency and where to get help if you need it.

The campaign supports mental health help-seeking in general so 1737 are not just perceived as a ‘crisis’ helpline. Using the understated, kiwi-ism of “Struggle Got Real?”, the campaign offers the answer in numbers and Te Reo Māori: 1737 tahi whitu toru whitu.

You can expect to see the campaign rolling out around the motu through February, with a mostly digital campaign from March. Advertising includes billboards, digital ads, bus backs, radio ads and chat from DJs, social media (four month campaign on Facebook and Instagram), and street posters.

Please consider how you and your organisations can help share this campaign to help your whānau, friends and community.

You can share the Facebook posts directly from the 1737 Facebook page or click the link below for other materials including ready to print posters for your workplace.

Share the message

Watch or listen: Find out how the Prime Minister takes care of her wellbeing

For some inspirational viewing or listening this week, check out this chat between Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Sir John Kirwan.

As part of Mentemia’s Open Minded video and podcast series, the pair sat down just before Christmas to talk about the importance of sleep and the Prime Minister’s approach to mental wellbeing.

They talk through six key ingredients for maintaining wellbeing – Chill, Connect, Do, Move, Celebrate and Enjoy.

Jacinda Ardern says “For me, we need to try and get ourselves to a place where the way we talk about the health and wellbeing of our hearts is the same as how we talk about the health and wellbeing of our minds…There’s no stigma. It’s all about looking after our full wellbeing.”

Watch a short clip about how we all have mental wellbeing

Watch or listen to the full interview

Te Reo Māori word of the week

Tangata whakawhitiira = Transgender person

Find more at Te Reo Hapai