SociaLink’s Community Insights service is helping Waipu Hauora’s health and wellness service do more with the information it collects on the people it serves.

The Hauora, based at Hungahungatoroa Marae, is the main health and social service provider for the community and whānau of Matapihi. Waipu Hauora works with the communities of Hungahungatoroa, Whareroa and Waikari Marae of Ngāi Te Rangi iwi.

The Hauora is one of 18 kaupapa Māori providers (subcontracted to Poutiri Trust) providing health promotion services to local communities, funded by Bay of Plenty District Health Board. Programmes the Hauora provide include those for kaumātua and kuia, health promotion and vaccination clinics, antenatal and smoke-free classes for hapū māmā (pregnant women), rangatahi (youth) and children’s programmes as well as training in traditional Māori health practises.

The Hauora already gathers rich information about its hāpori (community) - but wants to know more about how well its programmes are working and where any gaps might be.

That’s where SociaLink’s Community Insights comes in. The Hauora is now working with the Community Insights team to undertake a Health Needs Analysis to develop better outcomes for the people the Hauora serves.

Community Insights’ manager Liz Flaherty and Research Policy and Advocacy advisor Liz Stewart are working with Waipu Hauora manager Riria Gibbons and administrator Rocky Fenton to develop and refine systems to gain more insights from the information they routinely collect. This is the Community insights’ first focused project with local hapū.

The work incorporates a Community Health Needs Analysis, which will include dashboarding of Waipu Hauora’s own internal data, identifying relevant regional and national datasets to use for benchmarking, identifying and mapping long-term outcomes that are meaningful to the community and developing measures and indicators linked to these.

“It will help us understand for instance how many whānau have diabetes, and how we can help them best and where to push our resources,” Riria says.

Last year Hauora staff undertook training in data analytics tool Tableau.

“It’s exciting for us to use that technology to find easier ways of doing things,” says Riria. Community Insights’ data specialist Muhammad Mubashir Mukhtar will be working alongside the Hauora’s staff to start developing dashboards, combining their own data with publically available data to better understand the current and future needs of their community.

Liz Flaherty says the data being gathered by a number of local agencies can be unlocked to create a more nuanced, grassroots picture of the social needs in the region and localised responses that are proving useful. The aim is to build confidence, skills and trust in using data to inform the work social agencies do.

“Social agencies collect and collate information about gender, ethnicity, age, suburb, employment status of the people we work with, the types of services they use and why they need us,” she says. Agencies also collect information about their staff, volunteers, programmes, services and feedback.

“But are we fully using all this information to build better, more responsive services and to enable the long-term change in the significant social issues and challenges our communities are facing? This is where Community Insights can help.”

The Community Insights team aims to give organisations up-to-date analysis and data, working alongside groups to build their data skills.

“We can provide data support to better inform planning, policy and best practice in the Western Bay of Plenty. We’ll support your organisation to build skills and expertise in using both your own and relevant external data to enhance and grow your work in the community,” Liz says.

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