This Thursday 15 May is the United Nations International Day of Families.
To mark the occasion, we’re highlighting the awesome mahi of our Whānau services from across the country.
Our Whānau Support Workers provide a space for people supporting their loved ones to decompress, share their story and express the ups and downs that come with the journey. They provide information and advocacy to empower whānau to confidently navigate the health system and other services attached.
Counties Manukau
Within our Counties Manukau-based service, the Whānau Support Worker has been piloting the Family WRAP program. “The WRAP process supports you to identify the tools that keep you well and create action plans to put them into practice in your everyday life. All along the way, WRAP helps you incorporate key recovery concepts and wellness tools into your plans and your life.”
As well as the WRAP process, the Whānau Support Worker also delivers the Mental Health First Aid course, which equips whānau with the extra tools to help support their loved ones. We have seen firsthand the lives that have been saved from this valuable workshop. The criteria to attend the workshop is to be supporting a loved one through their mental health/addictions journey.
Some of the feedback we have received:
- Great workshop, informative, engaging and great information contact throughout the two days.
- One of the best courses I’ve done in a while. Would highly recommend any of my friends to do this course.
- I am rating them 10 out of 10 because they use their experience with mental health to explain how people experiencing mental health feels when they have mental health challenges. This is the best way of getting people who have been there and experience it and talk from their experiences. I applaud them for what they shared with us.
- I found the course very informative and enjoyable. I do feel confident enough now to be able to support someone that is showing signs of mental health.
- It was a great course with very in-depth course material. Both Fleur and Berenice did a great job sharing the information and encouraging discussion. I very much enjoyed this course and feel much more confident in using what I have learnt.
- Loved everything about this course. I’ve already used it a number of times.
West Auckland
In West Auckland, we received this heartwarming piece of feedback for our Whānau Services:
“I thank God that I came to know the Emerge Aotearoa Family Support service… Through the service I was able to access community groups like Ruruku (Mind and Body) & whānau resilience (Lifewise). Which enables me to better support my loved ones struggling with mental health and addictions… I want to challenge other whānau not to feel ashamed to share their own journeys.” – Maeroa
Napier
Within our Napier-based Whānau service, one of the Whānau Support Workers delivers the Family Connections programme which provides education, skills training, and support for people who are in a relationship with someone who experiences difficulties regulating emotions. By delivering this programme in the community, we are able to reach whānau that may have previously only had a touch point with secondary level services and we are able to wrap around and bring out their own strengths as a whānau member.
“I also wanted to pass on our thanks for the Family Connections and support work you have been doing with us. It has been incredible – we haven’t ever felt as supported until you came along despite trying for a very long time to get help. We appreciate you coming to us to take us through the Family Connection program which has been so useful. We can finally see a way to support our daughter and look after our wellbeing at the same time. Lots of practice to work through though!”
The Whānau services also do one on one sessions where some of the most impactful work they do is holding space for whānau to process what is going on for them and support them to make a plan for their role within their loved one’s journey through services.
“It’s incredibly appreciated and for us as a family does not go unnoticed. Having our meetings this year has given me a lot of peace and direction, something I could not have attained on my own.”
