 |
| Whiringa-ā-rangi | November Our monthly newsletter serves as a platform to connect the mahi of our team with insights from our policy groups, wider membership, and sector relationships. Through this lens, we aim to highlight how these combined efforts shape policy and influence decision-making. Each issue is structured around our four primary focus areas: Tō Tātou Rāngai | Our Sector Tamariki | Children Kaumātua | Older People Ōritetanga me te whakaurunga | Equity & Inclusion In the Kaumātua, Tamariki, and Ōritetanga me te whakaurunga sections, updates will align with the following themes: Threads in Action: Current Highlights. Key updates on impactful initiatives and accomplishments relevant to our members and sector. Weaving New Patterns: What Lies Ahead. A preview of upcoming projects and areas for potential engagement. Interwoven Impacts: Reflecting on Influence. Insight into how past work has contributed to broader sector outcomes. As always, we welcome your feedback and thank you for your continued commitment to this work.Changes within NZCCSS Farewell to Kaiwhakahaere Matua | Executive Officer Nikki Hurst We would like to take this opportunity to recognise and thank our incredible Executive Officer, Nikki Hurst, who left NZCCSS last week to take on a new role in the public sector. Nikki’s exceptional leadership, extensive policy knowledge, relationship-building skills, and tireless advocacy have significantly strengthened our work and impact. Her contributions over the years have been invaluable, and she leaves a legacy of dedication and passion for social justice. We wish Nikki all the best in her future endeavours. Welcome our Interim Kaiwhakahaere Matua | Executive Officer Rachel Mackay Our Kaitātari Kaupapa Here Matua | Senior Policy Analyst responsible for our Kaumātua | Older People portfolio, Rachel Mackay takes on the role while recruitment takes place. Rachel is a talented, passionate and knowledgeable member of our team who is excited by the challenge and eager to continue and build on the great work already taking place. Rachel will be supported by another Rachel, Rachel Roberts who takes on our Kaiwhakahaere Hononga | Relationships Manager role. Rachel Roberts has been working with us this year on an exciting piece of work we will be releasing in the new year, we are thrilled to have her continuing with us.  Shaping the Future of Social InvestmentSocial Investment has a long legacy with the National Party, championed by Bill English in 2015 during his tenure as Prime Minister. The approach intends to use data and evidence to understand need and improve services by measuring their outcomes. Social Investment adjusts social service provision to a highly targeted approach, focusing on the individuals with the greatest need to create the greatest impact from the financial investment in them. This involves overcoming a number of obstacles, including finding these individuals and designing targeted interventions that will improve their quality of life in the long term. On November 15, members of our organisation attended the Social Investment Hui hosted by the Social Investment Agency. With the opening address given by the Minister for Social Investment, Hon. Nicola Willis, the day-long workshop focused on how this approach can be used to innovate service delivery in Aotearoa and produce long-lasting, targeted, meaningful results. With a presentation about the Victoria State ‘Early Intervention Intervention Framework’, a discussion with community leaders, and a presentation from the National Iwi Chairs Forum regarding the amazing progress they have made on their own social investment frameworks and tools, there was a strong focus on getting the approach to work best for those who need it most. Robust discussions on key topics rounded out the day, with each facilitated by a member of the newly appointed Social Investment Agency Board. The wide scope of attendees allowed the thoughts and insights of service providers, iwi, philanthropy and investors to be included in the notes that will be taken back and generated into the first stages of a plan to integrate Social Investment into the landscape of Aotearoa’s service provision. We look forward to the future opportunities to engage with the Social Investment Agency as their workstream progresses. We hope the conversations being had with the providers continues to be open, inclusive and robust.  Threads in Action: Long Term Insights Briefings for Tamariki & WhānauWe are seeing a focus on long-term insights briefings (LTIB) across a range of policy areas at present. Under the Public Service Act 2020, chief executives in the public service must produce a long-term insights briefing every three years. Long-term insights briefings are not government policy but provide future-focused information about the medium-long term trends, issues and opportunities relevant to the chosen LTIB topic and possible policy responses. As part of this process the government is required to consult on the chosen topic and the draft briefing. You can read more about LTIBs in the September issue of Weaving Policy. Two LTIB’s of particular interest to the Children’s & Families portfolio are: Public Consultation on Topic for a Long-Term Insights Briefing: Improving the early identification of, and support for, children and young people at risk of maltreatment between now and 2040 (Oranga Tamariki) – This LTIB is open for submissions until 5pm Friday 29th November. We encourage you to have a say on this topic. Realising the potential for technology to support personalised and tailored learning in the future (Ministry of Education) – Read our submission on this LTIB here. As well as participating in consultation on the LTIB topics, we will be looking out next year for opportunities to submit on the draft briefings. Weaving New Patterns: Oversight of Oranga Tamariki This month we have been gathering feedback on the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki Amendment Legislation which will see Aroturuki Tamariki | the Independent Children’s Monitor become an independent crown entity and the Children’s Commission return to a sole commissioner structure. We have summarised our draft points in relation to these changes below and hope that they will provide insight for others seeking to share their views on this issue. Submissions on this legislation close 8 December. Greater enforceability of the recommendations made by monitoring entities is needed. Timeliness of the system is a current barrier to its effectiveness. Greater clarification of the system is needed to ensure its effectiveness and accessibility. The system must uphold the articles of te Tiriti. How will the learnings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care be integrated into the system? Concern regarding the risks to impact and resourcing resulting from policy swings. How can the oversight system enable strengthened reporting about children and young people’s wellbeing? How will resourcing be improved to enable reliable and responsive avenues for reporting concerns or complaints? Concern regarding the timing of legislative change prior to completion of the reviews of current oversight legislation. Recommendation that the provision for key roles (such as Chief Commissioner and Chair/CE of ICM) be extended beyond one year to provide continuity and minimise the impacts of these changes on key monitoring functions. Recognition that this Bill is a response to the sector’s concerns at the timing of the 2022 Oversight changes. We welcome any feedback you may have on these amendments – please email [email protected] Interwoven Impacts: Sharing our Mahi We were excited to present our report on middle childhood – Te Kōrero mō ngā Tamariki to the paediatric team at Taranaki Base Hospital in October. It was great to hear feedback on the report and affirmation of where we see opportunities to increase support for children during this age stage. We are always grateful when people share our work or make introductions to others who have an interest in middle childhood. Interested in having Mel present to your team or at one of your events? Mel Wilson is the lead author and senior policy analyst responsible for our Children’s portfolio. She is available to present on Te Kōrero mō ngā Tamariki | Exploring the context of middle childhood in Aotearoa New Zealand to your team or at your events.Last month she presented insights from the report to the paediatric team at the Taranaki Health Board to really positive feedback. Please email [email protected] to explore her availability.  Threads in Action: Long Term Insights Briefings and Kaumātua As for other portfolios, long-term insights briefings are present in the older person’s space. In October, MSD opened consultation on its LTIB regarding Current and Future Disadvantage for Older New Zealanders, asking for feedback on the topic of New Zealand’s older people and their wellbeing as our over 65 population increases from 16% to 25% of the total population in 2055. Read our submission here. We also ensured older people were considered in the HUD LTIB regarding the change in housing trends towards residential high rise. We expressed our concern that older people and their needs were not being considered in a push towards this style of housing, which you can read in our submission here. The Ministry of Health has an upcoming LTIB regarding the potential of active ageing. Older people currently have no dedicated health strategy, and we continue to wait for the results of both the Ageing Well review out of Te Whatu Ora and the Select Committee Enquiry into the capacity of the sector. We look forward to submitting on this important topic to ensure our membership’s views are represented in this. You can make a submission on this LTIB here. Weaving New Patterns: Housing Insecurity Report Later this week we will launch our latest report ‘Housing Insecurity in Over 55s in Aotearoa’, an analysis of Emergency Housing Special Needs Grants and Public Housing Register applications in those over 55 in March 2024. Written to be accessible and widely understood, we hope this report will shed light on an important and underdiscussed topic. It is the follow-on report from the competition-winning poster at this year’s New Zealand Association of Gerontology conference. If you are interested in being included in the distribution list for this publication, please be in touch with Rachel on [email protected]. Interwoven Impacts: Tracing Our Influence Last week we attended an engaging workshop with other leaders of the Aged Care sector to discuss the action that needs to be taken to correct the course for our kaumātua. Following on from the wide endorsement of the Aotearoa Aged Care Action Plan, it was gratifying to engage with other leaders and staunch advocates for a system that better cares for and supports our older people. The discussion was led by a presentation from Tom Symondson who was part of the Australian task force whose report led to the upcoming Aged Care Act. This gives hope that many of the objectives of the AACAP, especially ‘Objective One – Sector-wide decisions are bi-partisan and long term in nature’ are possible. We look forward to the next discussion.  Threads in Action: Draft Suicide Prevention Action Plan We have recently completed a submission on the Draft Suicide Prevention Action Plan for 2025-2029. Although we support any work to reduce the number of suicides in Aotearoa and the harm they cause both directly and indirectly, our submission included a few suggestions on ways the Action Plan could be improved further. One of these was adding in consideration for perinatal mental health. Perinatal refers to the period a woman is pregnant and the one year following birth. Suicide is the leading cause of death in perinatal women and can be attributed to 22% of all deaths in this group. This is a startling statistic and one for which solutions are clearly lacking in the Action Plan. Despite perinatal women being mentioned in the background to set the scene for suicide in Aotearoa at the start of the plan, there are no specific strategies included to address this. Recent evidence suggests that perinatal depression is common and that support to help these women is difficult to access due to strict criteria which deem that many women’s symptoms are not significant enough to require support. The strict criteria combined with a lack of reporting of symptoms in this group are some of the underlying causes behind Aotearoa’s shocking perinatal suicide rates. As such we highlighted a need to incorporate specific strategies to address this into the Action Plan. Weaving New Patterns: What’s on the horizon? We have just begun work on our Submission for the Mental Health Bill. This bill will replace the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992. The Act was designed to be a last resort and covers the legislation regarding intervention when a person needs mental health treatment they have not consented to. The He Ara Oranga report following the 2018 independent inquiry, strongly recommended that the government repeal and replace this Act. The Act has been purported to breach both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Additionally, despite being designed as a last resort measure for individuals who are at risk of harm to themselves or others, the pressures currently faced by our mental health system mean that in some instances, the Act has been used because it is the only means of accessing mental health support. We are looking forward to investigating this legislation further in the coming weeks and speaking to other organisations who are submitting feedback on the Bill. |
| Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV) |
21 November, 2024
Te Raranaga Kaupapa Here – Whiringa-ā-rangi
The November edition of our Weaving Policy newsletter
Te Raranga Kaupapa Here – Hakihea
The December edition of our Weaving Policy newsletter
News
Te Raranga Kaupapa Here – Mahuru
The first edition of our new-format newsletter, Weaving Policy, released in September 2024
News
Te Raranga Kaupapa Here – Whiringa-ā-nuku
The October edition of our Weaving Policy newsletter
News