Health and Social Wellbeing
One of the key activities this year has been the clarification of roles and responsibilities and beginning steps of realignment. Early in 2009 we appointed a Programme Leader, Health and Social Wellbeing, who has been holding meetings around the rohe with manawhenua groups, rūnanga, He Oranga Pounamu, key stakeholders and the Crown. These have included discussions on topical areas such as Iwi Crime Crash Plans, whānau violence and the clarification of the Crown relationship responsibility and representation.
A key historical document written by Dr Erihana Ryan – the 1999 Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu Decision Paper that set up He Oranga Pounamu – is where we find the foundation putake of this area within a two-pronged strategy named the Ngāi Tahu Health and Social Services Strategy. This strategy was developed after extensive consultation and hui around the rohe and is still relevant today.
The first part of the strategy was to establish a Treaty-based relationship with the Crown and its agencies to enable strategic directional influence in the health and social policy sectors by participating at a governance level as a Treaty partner. The relationship with the Crown was to be serviced and supported by the then Ngāi Tahu Development Corporation. Ngāi Tahu Development Corporation and later the Office initially held contracts for $80 000 per annum. A relationship being developed with the Ministry of Health was stopped in 2004 with the intent for negotiations to continue at a future date.
The second part of the strategy proposed that one major health and social services organisation, He Oranga Pounamu, be established to integrate health and social services within the Ngāi Tahu rohe. It was envisaged that existing Māori health and social service providers would be invited to affiliate with the organisation and opportunities made for Papatipu Rūnanga to be involved in service provision.
Ingrained in He Oranga Pounamu's trust document from the outset was the intent to keep the organisation well connected to Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. This intent was reflected in Ngāi Tahu's majority shareholding, the governing board and the reporting requirements to Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.
The strategy envisaged the Crown partnership function and the integrated service provision vehicle to work as complementary components of the strategy. The work of the Office continues to be focussed on realigning the relationship to progress the original strategy vision. There is still much work to do to re-establish the Crown relationship and reconnect the infrastructure and backbone within this area.
Social Service Agency Engagement Framework
A framework has been developed as a guideline for engaging with Social Service Agencies. This framework builds on elements from a variety of work including: the 1999 Ngāi Tahu Health and Social Strategy, the recent Te Mahere Mātauraka Education work, and the Police Iwi Crime Crash Plan concept. The principles and themes of the framework are currently being discussed with stakeholders.
The Ngāi Tahu Health and Social Service Strategy proposes a complementary two-fold strategy around influencing crown and service co-ordination across the rohe. Te Mahere Mātauraka clearly provides the multi-level relationship structure, and sets the precedent of funding rūnanga education portfolio holders and iwi to provide strategic advice, project development, funding and innovation and the opportunity to design and monitor iwi priorities.
The principles behind the Iwi Crime Crash Plans, designed by NZ Police, are cutting edge. Instead of developing yet another Māori strategy as many agencies do, police asked iwi to develop their own plan and response to reduce Māori offending and victimisation in their takiwā.
Core principles that underline the Social Agency Engagement Framework include:
- A formalised multi-level working relationship with the key strategic partner agency clearly identifying the relationship engagement structure (Kaiwhakahaere to Minister or Board Chair, CEO to CEO, office staff to national, regional and local staff as required, rūnanga to any and all levels).
- Rūnanga and iwi-designed and led initiatives.
- Mechanisms to link all rūnanga representatives and other stakeholders in the takiwā and work collaboratively on issues and opportunities as they arise.
- Development of rūnanga and iwi-identified priorities to inform and monitor Crown and other stakeholder strategy and action progress as it relates to Te Ao Māori.
- Rūnanga and Iwi strategic advice and initiatives aimed to address and rectify system inequities and develop innovation are to be funded by the Crown as part of the formalised relationship agreement.
