July 18, 2019
Whānau ora offers route to engagement
The head of the South Island Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency says government agencies need to develop some courage and start using whānau ora as a delivery mechanism to meet their objectives.
Helen Leahy says apart from the money it gets from the Ministry for Māori Development, Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu also has partnerships with Pharmac for a health literacy and with Te Pūtea Whakatupu Trust to run literacy and numeracy programmes for tamariki Māori.
She says it seems to take government departments a long time to trust families can look after themselves if they have the right resources.
"If it's good enough for an entity outside government to exercise courage and look to whānau ora to try to engage with whānau where they may not be engaging so well then I hope that government can follow that same lead and start to take whānau ora and to take whānau seriously, that they are committed to transformation as much as any KPI in any government document," Ms Leahy says.
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