“Whānau Ora is about empowering whānau to take control of their future. What we want for our whānau is to be self-determining, to be living healthy lifestyles, to be participating fully in society and to be economically secure.”

The Government will invest an additional $30 million in Whānau Ora over the next four years, including $11.25 million in the coming year, Whānau Ora Minister Tariana Turia says. Budget 2011 invested an additional $30 million on top of the $134 million invested in 2010.

“The funding will maintain the momentum created by the Whānau Ora approach, with opportunities to extend coverage across the country,” Mrs Turia says.

“Currently, 25 provider collectives involving 158 health and social service providers are beginning to deliver Whānau Ora and are working collaboratively to deliver this innovative approach to engage whānau.”

Budget 2011 will ensure Whānau Ora is supported in at least eight new provider collectives in a range of new locations including Kaipara, Hauraki, South Waikato, Taupō/Tūrangi, Palmerston North, Wairarapa, Levin/Kapiti Coast and Murihiku.

“I believe whānau have the capability and collective capacity to overcome the challenges they face and will take responsibility if empowered to do so.

“This further investment in Whānau Ora will ensure nationwide coverage during the next two years and represents a significant investment in the future of whānau from a Government that is prepared to be bold and innovative.”

What is Whānau Ora?

Whānau Ora is about a transformation of our whānau, with whānau setting their own direction. It is driven by a focus on outcomes: that whānau will be self-managing; living healthy lifestyles; participating fully in society; confidently participating in Te Ao Māori; economically secure and successfully involved in wealth creation; and cohesive, resilient and nurturing. Whānau Ora empowers whānau as a whole rather than focusing separately on individual family members and their problems. Whānau Ora providers will work together with families rather than separately with individuals. Whānau Ora is an inclusive approach to providing services and opportunities to all families in need.

How will Whānau Ora work for families?

Whānau Ora will work in a range of ways, influenced by the approach the whānau chooses to take. Some families will want to come up with their own ways of improving their lives and may want to work on this with a hapū, iwi or a non-government organisation (NGO). Other whānau will want to seek help from Whānau Ora providers who will offer them wrap-around services tailored to their needs. Families will have a champion – known as a navigator – to work with them to identify their needs, develop a plan of action to address them and broker their access to a range of health and social services.

How is Whānau Ora working for families?

Whānau Ora is currently being pursued through collaborative, strengthened and integrated service delivery across 25 provider collectives involving around 158 health and social service providers. These provider collectives continue to offer existing services to individuals, families and communities while they work on the changes they are making to their service delivery to engage whānau. Several hundred whānau – involving several thousand individuals – are already engaging in planning at the whānau level and are connecting to existing service delivery and increasingly to the Whānau Ora service providers.

How is Whānau Ora working for providers?

The focus at this point is on building effective service delivery mechanisms that engage and enable whānau to take their own positive steps. The Whānau Ora Governance Group is currently considering the first Programmes of Action from the provider collectives which outline the changes they intend to make to their service delivery model and the key steps they will take to implement these. These Programmes of Action are the result of considerable work undertaken by these providers and have been developed across collectives of providers that offer exciting potential in having come together.

Why will Whānau Ora be more successful than existing programmes?

Successive governments have tried to get agencies to work together and some of these initiatives have worked well. Whānau Ora takes this a step further by putting families at the centre because they are the best people to make decisions for themselves. This is likely to be more successful because families will have real ownership of their solutions.

For more information

Call 04 819 6024; email: whānauora@tpk.govt.nz or go to Te Puni Kōkiri website: www.tpk.govt.nz