Purpose of Ngātahi

This project is designed to bring agencies across health, educations, and social services together to deliver great care and interventions to vulnerable children and their families.

KAITIAKITANGA

1 Act in the best interest of Children

Champion the rights and interests of children
Work in a child-centred way
Professional conduct and continual improvement

TIKANGA

2 Be culturally competent

Understand diversity in Aotearoa NZ
Work with diversity and difference
Work effectively with Māori

RANGATIRATANGA

3 Identify needs and respond to vulnerability

Support a culture of child protection
Child protection policies and processes
Understand child development
Understand child health

HE TAONGA TE TAMAITI

4 Engage children

Empower children
Communicate effectively with children

TŪHONOTANGA

5 Work collaboratively and share information

Work collaboratively
Share information
Lead and sustain transformational change

WHANAUNGATANGA

6 Engage parents, family, whānau and caregivers

Empower parents, family, whānau and caregivers
Communicate effectively with parents, family, whānau and caregivers

Our Journey

Ngātahi is a workforce development programme for practitioners in Hawke’s Bay who work with tamariki and whānau experiencing violence, mental illness, addictions, transience, poverty, and poor social supports. This programme is designed to bring agencies across health, education, and social services together to deliver high quality care and interventions to vulnerable children and their families.

Thirty organisations are now involved, representing approximately 500 practitioners in health, education, and social services, working exclusively or predominantly with our tamariki and whānau. This number is likely to increase with the addition of more staff from the legal and education sectors. Ngātahi surveyed practitioners across the participating agencies and identified priorities for developing competencies in our children’s workforce.

Objectives of Ngātahi

Ngātahi’s objectives are to establish a sustainable system for practitioners working with vulnerable tamariki and whanau to:

Identify the additional competencies they believe they need (core competency mapping) to work effectively with tamariki and whānau

Develop training programmes to address these training needs that address both clinical and cultural competency

Embed the new competencies into practice

Foster relationships between practitioners in different organisations that facilitate intersectoral collaboration when working with tamariki and whānau with complex needs

Ngātahi is founded on principles of Ngāti Kahungnu tikanga, collective impact, and appreciative inquiry which guide all activities in the programme.

Key Messages

It’s about better care: Ngātahi is an opportunity to improve the expertise of the provider and thereby maximize the quality of care we provide to vulnerable children and families.
We are all in this together: agencies that entirely or mostly serve vulnerable children and families in HB commit to working together to develop a shared vision and common language as far as is possible.
Tuakana-Teina model: recognising and drawing on the skills that exist in Hawke’s Bay to develop practitioner competence and confidence.
Voluntary: Participation in the project and evaluation is voluntary, no-one is forced to participate.
Cultural safety as well as clinical competence: providing the best care for Māori whānau.

Ngātahi is a multi-agency, across-sector, collaborative programme. It aims to assess the skills and learning needs of health, education and social service professionals in Hawke’s Bay who are working predominantly or exclusively with vulnerable children and families. The aim of Ngātahi is to design, implement and evaluate a development and training programme for the vulnerable children’s workforce across the health, education and social service sectors in Hawke’s Bay. Ngātahi uses Collective Impact (a framework to address complex social problems in a collaborative way) and Appreciative Inquiry (which assumes that the solutions to improving the quality of service we deliver to our families lie within our workforce already).

The aim of Ngātahi is two-fold:

Identify and address the additional knowledge and skills the vulnerable children’s workforce in Hawke’s Bay need in order to work effectively with families and improve outcomes.
Improve relationships and develop a shared view and language by:
- agreeing on core values and competencies,
- including relevant stakeholders early,
- joint local governance to model the expected collaborative practice,
- sharing resources (facilities, people) wherever possible,
- valuing local expertise, e.g., using local trainers wherever possible,
- joint training across services, e.g., practitioners from multiple agencies in one locality attending training together.

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FAQs

All our facilitators, governance group members and workstream members give their time voluntarily as they believe in Ngātahi as a movement that changes the way we work. There is much skill and knowledge amongst our leaders and practitioners in Hawke’s Bay that if we can pool together and share, it would positively influence the way we work and improve outcomes for children and their families. If you would like to assist with facilitating or joining one of the work groups, please e-mail ngatahi@hbdhb.govt.nz.