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| Pipiri | June Mānawatia a Matariki! The team at the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services hopes all our members, supporters and readers had a reflective and refreshing Matariki weekend as we usher in the Māori New Year. This issue of our monthly newsletter is in the spirit of te tau hou, with a look back and a look forward, as well as something new under the Tō Tātou Rāngai section you won’t want to miss! As always, you can jump to the section most relevant to your work: Tō Tātou Rāngai | Our Sector Ōritetanga me te whakaurunga | Equity & Inclusion Kaumātua | Older People Tamariki | Children Our Annual Marae Hui This June, the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Service (NZCCSS) team and leadership Council met at Ruapōtaka Marae in Auckland. During this time together, we reflected on our achievements over the past year, the current context facing the social sector and what role NZCCSS can play in the coming year to support our members across the motu. The wairua of being on a working marae which serves its community through strength and resilience certainly influenced our time together. We reconfirmed that NZCCSS is an organisation rooted in Christian faith and values, connected with our community and advocates for structural change to improve the lives of people that our members serve. We also reaffirmed our deep and ongoing commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and used the time to consider how we can ensure our work reflects this commitment. We also took time to reflect on our unique role in upholding Article Four of Te Tiriti – the oral article that promised freedom of religion for both the Church and tangata whenua. We hope our work continues to reflect the importance of this article. NZCCSS will be releasing our new organisational strategy and annual plan for 2025/2026 soon. Watch this space!  The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services annual noho marae 2025 Secretariat and Council together on the paepae of Ruāpotaka marae’s wharenui, Āwhina Tāngata. Back row: Daniel Campbell (NZCCSS), Rev Peter Bargh (Kurahautū, Anglican), Shirley Rivers (Methodist Mission Northern, Methodist), Alicia Sudden (NZCCSS), Renee Rewi (Kake Oranga Hāhi Katorika, Catholic), Dr Katie Schraders and Archer Schraders (NZCCSS), Rachel Mackay (NZCCSS), Melanie Wilson (NZCCSS) Middle Row: Katerina Kupenga (Facilitator, AraHina), Dr Prudence Stone (Presbyterian Support, Presbyterian), David Hanna (Wesley Community Action, Methodist), Rev Dr Bonnie Robinson (Salvation Army Social Policy Unit, Presbyterian), Jono Bell (The Salvation Army), Lt. Rebecca Moffat (The Salvation Army) Front Row: Joleen Perry (Te Aka Ora, Anglican), Tunumafono Tracey-Leigh Peters (Iosis, Baptist) Absent – Rawiri Rewi (Visionwest, Baptist)  We are delighted to support the release of “Who is a SWiS and what do they do?”, a book created by the Iosis Social Workers in Schools team. This thoughtfully written and beautifully illustrated book teaches school students that SWiS are there if they need to talk about anything that’s worrying them at school or at home. The launch event for the book was held at Iosis last week, with attendance from Oranga Tamariki and other local social service agencies, as well as the Iosis SWiS/MASSiSS team and the schools they support. Heidi Austin-Crawford, former SWiS Manager and co-illustrator of this amazing taonga, read the book to great applause. “This book has been a labour of love by the whole SWiS team, and we’re so thrilled to finally have it published,” says Heidi. “Through simple, child-like messaging and illustrations, teachers can let children know that we’re there to help, no matter what’s going on in their lives.” “The launch was a very special event and reason to celebrate,” says Tunumafono Tracey-Leigh Peters, Iosis CEO. “This book is an important milestone in our mahi in schools – reassuring children that there is always someone they can talk to. By reaching these children early, we can ensure that little problems don’t become bigger problems in later life.”  Tumunafono Tracey-Leigh Peters (Iosis, CEO) with illustrators Heidi Austin-Crawford and Jolisa Silu’uga at the lauch event for their book “Who is a SWiS and what do they do?”To support the launch of this book and spread its reach even further, we have one copy to give away! Let us know how this book will help you engage students in your area and you’re in the draw, with the winner announced in our July newsletter. Enter here! Want to guarantee yourself a copy? Contact Sarah at Iosis for purchasing. We send our congratulations out to the team at Iosis for creating such an engaging and useful resource for our sector. The Spinoff are looking for people who have personal stories from the time of the 1991 welfare cuts (“Mother of All Budgets”) and/or The Employment Contracts Act that they want to share to be included in one of their podcasts. The interview would take approximately one hour at our studio in Tāmaki Makaurau or remotely by phone or video link. Please contact [email protected] if you are interested in being involved or if you have any questions about this project.  A Look Back We believe that public input into policy making should be as inclusive as possible. The way that our government works and how you can have a voice seems complicated from the outside. This year, we developed our Guide to Government to help you navigate this world, so that you can join us in advocating for a just and compassionate Aotearoa New Zealand. With Us Now We’re dedicated to taking meaningful action to honour the articles of te Tiriti o Waitangi in our work, including by advocacy for government to act as a good partner to Māori. Partnering requires active engagement with Māori on issues where they have an interest and reflecting those interests in regulation. Most recently we have added our voice to the calls for the Regulatory Standards Bill to be withdrawn, as it intentionally excludes reference to te Tiriti. We were pleased to see the similarly corrosive Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill fail to pass. To Look Forward Members frontline experiences provide highly valuable insights into how policy settings impact the people and whānau we serve. We are actively working on advocacy and policy development in the welfare space, drawing heavily on conversations with members. This year we want to do more to support and represent our members. If you are a member expect to hear more from us. Also please reach out if there are insights you want to share or things we can do to support you.  A Look Back With the release of the budget, NZCCSS hosted an inaugural post-budget webinar with sector leaders on the impacts of government decisions on the aged care space. We were proud to bring these expert insights to our members and interested members of the sector, with opening comments by Carolyn Cooper, the outgoing Aged Care Commissioner, and panel attendees: – Catherine Hall, Chief Executive of Alzheimers New Zealand – Jill Hawkey, Executive Director of the Christchurch Methodist Mission, who run Whare Tiaki – Malia Hamani, QSM, Chief Executive of TOA Pacific – Hon. Tracey Martin, Chief Executive of Aged Care Association NZ Feedback from this event was excellent, and we look forward to making this a standard part of our annual calendar. With Us Now Attention is growing on the increasing stress our sector is under. More than ever before aged care, retirement villages, home and community help and the organisations that support them are in the media. The stories being highlighted are heartbreaking, but we know that change in the system comes from hearts as much as it does heads, and giving names and faces to the consequences of decades of under-funding and under-prioritisation can help us to advocate for change. We know advocacy needs to be about more than pointing out the bad. It needs to provide hope and insight into the way that things can be done better. We know that our sector is filled with compassion and innovation and we want to ensure that those who are making the decisions know about it. July brings us to the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Aotearoa Aged Care Action Plan. This landmark document was developed alongside the sector to reflect the real needs our members see across aged care. We are in the process of collating some insights from discussions right across the sector into work they are doing under the different objectives and actions of the plan. While we wait for the release of Stage Two of the government’s review of aged care to be released, our members and our colleagues across the sector are still hard at work making life better for those who rely on our aged care sector. If you or your organisation would like to be profiled, there is still time to be involved. To Look Forward We have been working behind the scenes on the concept of an Older Persons Poverty Monitor for over a year now. Through discussion with our policy group and poverty experts, we have narrowed our scope, outlined our purpose, interrogated data sources and crafted a framework that we are proud to proceed with. In July we are opening consultation with interested parties on this monitor, with an opportunity to feedback on our definition of older persons poverty, our domains of poverty, and the measures we want to use to assess it.If you would like to be notified when this consultation opens, please be in touch.  A Look Back We want to see children and young people in Aotearoa New Zealand supported to thrive throughout all stages of development. This year we released Te Kōrero mō ngā Tamariki (TKmnT) – our report focused on middle childhood development (ages 5-12 years). TKmnT explores how children can be supported to thrive during this age stage. We invite you to read and share this resource with those in your networks who support tamariki and their whānau during middle childhood. With Us Now Many of our members work alongside whānau interacting with Oranga Tamariki and inform our advocacy focused on responding to changes within care and protection legislation and raising awareness of improvements needed to support the wellbeing of tamariki, rangatahi and whānau. We remain concerned by the impacts of cuts to services provided by our members and the challenges within the Oranga Tamariki system which have been identified in numerous reports. Most recently Aroturuki Tamariki’s report on Outcomes for tamariki and rangatahi Māori and their whānau in the oranga tamariki system highlights the way in which Māori continue to be overrepresented in and underserved by the system. It provides a stark picture of the impacts on children and young people and the intergenerational cycle of poor outcomes that can result when needs are not addressed early. We are encouraged to see the report highlight examples of initiatives that aim to reduce siloed approaches to working and provide wraparound supports that are showing promise for the tamariki, rangatahi and whānau they are working alongside. To Look Forward Reducing child poverty is a key focus area for our advocacy, as we regularly hear from members about the impacts of poverty on children, young people and their whānau. Following the announcement of Budget 2025 we called on Government to ensure a greater focus on the reduction of poverty – you can read our media release here.In the year ahead we will continue to: raise awareness of how insecurity of income, housing and food affect children and young people advocate for policies aimed at reducing these challenges within political party manifestos in the lead up to election 2026.We value any insights you can share from your mahi with tamariki, rangatahi and whānau to support these activities. Please contact us if there is anything you want to share. For all our recent submissions visit our website. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17 |
27 June, 2025
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