September 19, 2022
Whānau Ora celebrates Māori magic
Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chief executive John Tamihere says this week’s three-day conference in Rotorua is a celebration of whanau ora kaimahi and communities that look after each other.
It’s the first time the conference for the North Island agency has been held out of Tamaki Makaurau, and it’s a chance for providers to share stories and learn about the systems developed to back up their work.
Mr Tamihere says as well as developing and running a back office suite of digital services, the agency has developed training programmes from certificate to degree level.
It leaves it to each region to run its own operating model.
“Each region has got its own magic and its own mana and its own tikanga. We’re not driven by Wellington-based or regional-based pakeha modelling any more, and what’s working extraordinarily well for us is our own self-design, self development and therefore self-management of our own people by ourselves, to ourselves and ultimately our whanau become carriers of their own integrity and don’t require to be co-dependent on anyone,” Mr Tamihere says.
He says Whanau Ora delivers more bang for its bucks than any other service provider, as was demonstrated by its testing and vaccinating over a million people during Covid.