A mental health service that uses mahi toi (the arts) to create culturally safe spaces will reach into rural Tairāwhiti.
Funding of $900,000 will go towards primary mental health services on the East Coast and rural west of Tairāwhiti. Photo: Liam Clayton/The Gisborne Herald/ LDR
The primary mental health service will support west rural and East Coast communities and is expected to start between April and June.
A report before Hauora Tairāwhiti's district health board last month said $900,000 left over from another Ministry of Health contract would fund the service over two years.
But as it was a "finite resource" to 2022, with no guarantees of funding being extended, building leadership capability within the community would be key to making the service sustainable, the report said.
Hauora Tairāwhiti staff met with matua (elders) who confirmed Turanga Health and Ngāti Porou Hauora were the best providers to lead the initiative across the communities they already served.
Although different in approaches and makeup, both providers are well-established, offer a range of health and social services and have relationships and networks, including local kura (school), marae, hapū and hapori (community).
Mental health and addictions project manager Joanne Maraki, who wrote the report, said they intended to have a community-led early intervention programme that invested in local leadership.
The programme proposes using mahi toi - all forms of arts, crafts and creative expression - to create Wā Haumaru - culturally safe places and spaces for whānau to gather, engage and seek support.
"We expect the two providers will develop very different approaches reflective of the local community," she said.
These approaches would be agreed on and confirmed this month.
Tairāwhiti EIT mental health and addiction lecturer Claudia Maaka said the isolation of rural communities was a key issue when it came to mental health, but education, upskilling and "growing our own" was one way of addressing the gap.
"We are resilient communities up the East Coast because we've had to make do with what we've got. But in saying that, that's also not good enough. Our people deserve better access to resources such as rehabilitation and detox services."
Maaka, who previously worked for Ngāti Porou Hauora on the Coast for 14 years, said they were fortunate to have the health provider in among their communities and it did an "amazing job" around mental health provision.
Access to education around mental health and addiction was crucial, and this year Maaka had started teaching a Certificate in Mental Health and Addiction in Ruatoria through EIT.
"It's the first one being delivered up there and we had our first class a couple of weeks ago.
"It's about making sure our rural communities get really good education around what mental health looks like because there's so much stigma attached to it."
Upskilling communities to understand mental health was also key - "homegrown people going through education and getting qualifications to work in the sector," Maaka said.
Ngāti Porou Hauora chief executive Rose Kahaki said they had provided secondary mental health services to the Coast since the early 1990s but primary mental health services on the Coast were contracted to another provider - Pinnacle.
Primary mental health services were those aimed at mild or moderate mental health clients and included prevention, promotion and support services.
Secondary services included specialist and clinical care for moderate to severe clients.
Discussions with the district health board regarding the new funding would occur over the next month, she said.
East Coast residents could access alcohol and drug counselling, child and adult mental health services on the Coast, but there were no residential services.
The next steps were to confirm and negotiate specifics of the service, including detailed budget lines, to start delivery in the second quarter of 2021.
Turanga Health was approached for comment.
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