Introducing Mana Ake Wellbeing Team

By Chris McShane | Posted: Sunday February 24, 2019

The Mana Ake Wellbeing team work within our Community of Learning. Mana Ake – Stronger for tomorrow is a Government response to enhance wellbeing and promote mental health in children in Years 1 to 8 and their family/whānau by increasing collaboration between agencies and schools, and providing additional workers to increase the capacity of the pastoral support network.

The focus of Mana Ake is on early intervention, seeking outcomes of:

• Children supported by their whānau, schools, and community to stand tall and confident in their unique identity and to engage with their school and community.
• Healthy, safe, and resilient whānau.
• School communities supported to strengthen wellbeing for children and whānau.
• Better connection and collaboration across the system.

The Mana Ake team can support:

• Children – creating groups for children to build self-esteem and resilience, individual work with children, work with children and their families.
• Parents/whānau – providing workshops, advice and guidance, support in the home, support to access community resources.
• School systems – identifying opportunities and approaches to enhance wellbeing, including consistent messaging for parents/whānau to support school wellbeing goals.
• Teachers – supporting class-wide approaches to promoting wellbeing, and supporting children where mental health concerns have been identified by providing information and advice for teachers.
  

Each school within a cluster will have a Mana Ake liaison person. School cluster pastoral support network representatives, including the Mana Ake team, will participate in regular (at least once per term) pastoral support network meetings to:

• identify trends, opportunities and challenges.
  
• review and plan service delivery across the cluster.
  

Our Mana Ake team is made up of Craig Sage, Leanne McDougall, Amber Roozendaal and Kate Walkinshaw and they will based at Casebrook Intermediate but will be working in all the primary schools in the Tōtaranui Community of Learning.

Mana Ake workers will share goals and intervention approaches with children, families, schools and other pastoral care team members, as appropriate, to ensure everyone is informed about how best to support the child and their family/whānau.