Mental Health Awareness Week starts on the 10th October – 16th October 2011

The slogan for this year is “GET IN THE GAME, TRAINING FOR YOUR HAPPINESS”

Research tells us that there are five simple strategies that anyone Continue Reading »

Business Forum on Mental Health Chamber Luncheon

Mental Health Awareness Week, October 2010

 NZ Fashion Icon and entrepreneur Denise L’Estrange-Corbet was keynote speaker at the second annual Business Forum on Mental Health Luncheon held at Trailways Hotel on 7^th October 2010, with over 60 attendees from local businesses and the health and social services.  This was part of the regular WHK Chamber monthly luncheons sponsored and hosted by the Chamber of Commerce to ensure business owners are aware of the key issues facing their business, and built on the successful luncheon hosted by the Business Forum and the Chamber of Commerce in 2009.

 Denise L’Estange-Corbet, and Andrew Bridge from WORKSTAR (representing The Business Forum on Mental Health), presented the advantages to businesses of improving mental health and well being, and  identified ways in which employers can make effective changes in their business practice to guard against stigma and discrimination relating to mental illness. 

 Sponsorship was obtained from The Mental Health Foundation, Tasman District Council and Ramazzini Health and Safety. This greatly assisted Health Action Trust who contributed the majority of project funding.

Kotuku is a place where people who are experiencing an emotional or mental crisis have an alternative to hospitalization or respite in a private home based using the peer support model. Peer support is a system of giving and receiving help founded on key principles of respect, shared responsibility and mutual agreement of what is helpful.

Peer Support offers a fundamentally different model of supporting people to make sense of their experiences. It can provide people with opportunities to find new ways and strategies to respond. Peer support relationships validate the reality of a person’s experience outside the context of illness or diagnosis. Rather it is built on mutual aid and understanding. It attracts people who have experienced negative treatment in the system and also those who want to stay out of the system altogether. The peer support model challenges the problem approach and focuses on discovering and creating innovative and alternative resources, solutions and strategies.

Kotuku is based on the following concepts:

• Respect
• Having fun
• Shared power
• Creating dialogue
• Valuing community
• Flexible boundaries
• Shared responsibility
• Absolute belief in recovery
• Empathy and accountability
• Understanding and mutuality
• Honest direct communication
• Self Awareness and Reflection
• Creating new ways of making meaning
• Not using symptoms as an excuse for inconsiderate behavior

“He kotuku rerenga tahi”, a kotuku of a single flight. A Kotuku is to be seen perhaps once in a lifetime. A symbol of things both beautiful and rare. It has an important place in tikanga Maori, and to compare a visitor to a kotuku is a compliment of highest order.