Fourth Mental Health Promotion Hui Aotearoa

MEDIA RELEASE
August 1, 2008
Fourth Mental Health Promotion Hui Aotearoa: 7-8 August 2008

(Upper Hutt, New Zealand) A diverse array of people, passionate about improving the mental health of their communities, will gather at Orongomai Marae in Upper Hutt next week for the Fourth Annual Mental Health Promotion Hui Aotearoa.

Under the frame of “Te Pae Mahutonga: A Framework For Wellness”, MPs, academics, activists and health promoters alike will share their visions for mental wellbeing, celebrating difference and valuing diversity in New Zealand.

The hui is organised by the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand in partnership with Regional Public Health, Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC), Vakaola Pacific Community Health, and Te Roopu Pookai Taniwhaniwha.

“Mental health promotion aims to change social, economic and physical environments to improve health for all people,” says Judi Clements, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation. “It’s a very broad field as the factors that affect this cover everything from working and living conditions, to how connected people feel to their families, culture and community.”

Finding common ground between sectors such as community, housing, education, and public health in order to strengthen mental health promotion is a key objective of this year’s hui.

It also aims to contribute to the overall goal for Maori health – Whanau Ora – which empowers individuals and families to maximise health and wellbeing, and valuing the contribution they make to society. Reflected in the programme is a desire to nurture and encourage leadership by Maori, Pasifika and tangata whaiora (people experiencing mental illness) across the spectrum of mental health promotion.

“We’ve brought together a diverse and exceptional range of speakers and presenters to challenge, inspire and inform our ways of working with communities, and advocating for change,” Clements adds.

ENDS

To download the hui programme, click here:
http://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/resources/Mental%20Health%20Promotion%20Hui%20Programme.pdf

Spokesperson and keynote speaker information follow.

CHIEF SPOKESPERSON

Judi Clements, Chief Executive
Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand

Judi is an experienced Chief Executive in the NGO sector with a background in law, social policy, housing, local government and management practice in the UK.

From 1991 – 2001, Judi was Chief Executive of Mind (the National Association for Mental Health), the UK’s leading Mental Health Charity. Judi led Mind through key developments, including promoting social inclusion through a multifaceted campaign “Respect”. She led the approach to quality and monitoring capacity building 212 local Mind providers in 2 countries.

Judi sat on several government advisory groups and in 1999 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate for services to mental health and local government.

After working independently and as a Board member of a range of tertiary institutions and national agencies, Judi relocated to New Zealand in 2005, to be Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation. She has a passion for the development of organisations to promote social justice and the elimination of all forms of unfair discrimination.

SOME KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AT THE HUI

Moana Jackson
Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou

Moana is highly regarded throughout Māoridom and mainstream Aotearoa for his measured and important contribution in the struggles of the Māori people in terms of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) 1840, sovereignty issues and indigenous rights. He is known and respected at all levels of society - from government, to academia, through to local marae community level.

Moana graduated in Law from Victoria University in Wellington; was Director of the Māori Law Commission; was appointed Judge on the International People’s Tribunal in 1993 and has since then sat on hearings in Hawai’i, Canada and Mexico. He was appointed Visiting Fellow at Victoria University Law School in 1995, and was elected Chair of the Indigenous People’s Caucus of the United Nations working Group on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

He teaches in the Māori Law and Philosophy degree programme at Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa. He has been at the vanguard of thinking in terms of restorative justice particularly after he wrote his highly-acclaimed 1996 report, ‘Māori and the Criminal Justice System’. Twenty years later, he says that the recommendations in the report still apply and have yet to be fully implemented.

Moana is seen by his people as a strong advocate for the downtrodden. In 2007, he played a major advocacy role on behalf of members of the rural Māori community of Ruātoki, after NZ Police raided the community based on alleged ‘terrorist’ activity.

Adrian Panozzo
CEO, RecLink Australia

Adrian Panozzo is the Chief Executive Officer of RecLink, an organisation that uses sport and the arts to transform the lives of individuals and communities experiencing disadvantage. Using their unique model, RecLink connects over 200 community agencies with more than 20 innovative programs across Australia, including remote regions of the Central Desert. Earlier this year Prime Minister Kevin Rudd referred to RecLink as an innovative form of social inclusion.

A graduate of Stanford University’s Executive Program for Not for Profit Leaders, Adrian is also a Churchill Fellow, member of VicHealth’s Social Participation Advisory Committee and Queens Trust for Young Australians – Future Leader participant.

Adrian is a former National level AFL umpire, competed in the 1998 Hawaii Iron man World Championships and was a member of the second place team behind the Queen’s Guard Gurkha’s in 2005 100km Trailwalker Challenge.

Sue Bradford
Green MP

Sue Bradford is married with 5 children. Before becoming an MP Sue was
a community development worker and political activist in the unemployed and
beneificiaries movement. Sue has also been an activist on social justice, peace and
women’s issues and is currently a Green MP.

Sue believes that if groups don’t challenge the system constantly and try to change
it in a structural way in favour of the people or cause for which they are fighting,
then all the counselling interventions, bed nights, food parcels or social marketing
campaigns will be for nothing. She is committed to continuing this challenge and
being a voice inside the system for those who are trodden down by it.

Tariana Turia
Maori Party Co-Leader, MP for Te Tai Hauauru

Prior to her time as an MP, Tariana has worked in many health and community-related roles, including: Chief Executive of Te Oranganui Iwi Health Authority (the longest and largest Maori Health Service provider in the Central Region); Service broker for Te Puni Kokiri (Whanganui Office) 1993-95; Manager Whaioranga Iwi Social Services Unit, 1991; Manager Whanganui Regional Development Board Trust, 1989.

She was also a member of an evaluation team for first pilot cervical screening project for Maori women; a member of two task forces to establish kura kaupapa Maori and member of a team that established the Te Awa Youth Trust (the first marae based training establishment in 1980).

During her time in Parliament, she has held the following ministerial portfolios: Associate Minister of Corrections, Health, Housing, Maori Affairs. Social Services and Employment (Social Services), and Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector. She has been co-leader of the Maori Party and MP for Te Tai Hauauru since 2004.

Aubrey Quinn & Michelle Te Ahuru
Like Minds, Like Mine campaigners

Aubrey Quinn is the face of the latest Like Minds, Like Mine television campaign. He is originally from the United Kingdom and now lives in Tauranga with his partner Michelle Te Ahuru and their two daughters.

Aubrey was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder in 1998. His recovery has involved medication and counselling and learning to regulate his moods. He reports that the diagnosis now has little impact on his daily life.

In his Like Minds, Like Mine television advertisements Aubrey shares his experience of mental illness and, along with friends and family, talks about the relationships that have been important in his recovery. The advertisements encourage people to think about how their behaviour can reduce stigma and discrimination toward those with experience of mental illness, how their actions can make a difference to a person’s recovery, and avoid excluding people, and the unifying message is that “what you do makes the difference".

Prof John Raeburn
Adjunct Professor, Auckland University of Technology

John Raeburn recently retired from the School of Population Health, University of Auckland after 34 years of academic, research and practice life. He currently holds a position as Adjunct Professor at Auckland University of Technology.

John has a PhD in Psychology, and he was Head of the Behavioural Science programme at the University of Auckland for many years. He has taught medical students, and postgraduate students in health science and public health, including originating the Mental Health Development programme.

His areas of interest include health promotion, community development, mental health promotion, and spirituality. He has been involved in many innovations in these areas over the years, and has published widely in the local and international literature, including authorship of the book People-Centred Health Promotion (with Canadian Irving Rootman).

He has worked with the WHO, and was closely involved with both the Ottawa and Bangkok Charters for Health Promotion. He has been Chair of the Mental Health Foundation, and was until recently Director of Public Health for the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He is currently on the Board of the new mental health NGO Affinity.

John’s passion has always been primarily with grass-roots, empowering community development, and its relationship to health and wellbeing, and in 2006, he was awarded a QSO for Community Service.

Amohia Boulton
Ngai Te Rangi, Ngā ti Ranginui, Ngā ti Pukenga

Amohia Boulton has tribal affiliations to Ngai te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Pūkenga in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand.

She is currently a Health Research Council Post Doctoral Research Fellow at Te Pūmanawa Hauora, the Research Centre for Māori Health and Development at Massey University, Palmerston North, an ACADRE International Scholar in Indigenous Health and Visiting Professor at the University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, Canada.

Amohia’s research interests include Māori mental health, Māori health services research, inequalities research and the impact of health reforms on indigenous peoples. She has worked with a range of Māori health providers investigating how health services may better meet the needs of Māori.

In October, Amohia takes up a new position at Whakauae Research Services, an iwi-based research centre in Whanganui, where she hopes her research will be of more immediate and direct benefit to Māori communities. Amohia lives with her partner on a lifestyle block near Marton in the Rangitikei.

ENDS

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