Why family whānau leadership roles are just as important in NGOs

By Sharon Necklen, family whānau lead, Emerge Aotearoa. Sharon works nationally but lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

Emerge Aotearoa created the role of family whānau lead to respond to the shift in practice models and service delivery frameworks that have evolved over the last decade.

These models and frameworks have increased emphasis on whānau inclusion and engagement, rather than input from whānau being an add on, or nice to have. The Supporting Parents’ Healthy Children Guidelines* (2015) have been key to the way Emerge Aotearoa have moved to engage better with whānau. 

“Awareness of the need for adult mental health and addiction services to take a ‘whole of family and whānau’ approach is growing. Individual treatment of parental mental illness in isolation tends not to achieve good outcomes for the child, parent or their family and whānau, especially compared with a family-focused approach. A whole-family, strengths-based approach that is informed by the service user and involves well-integrated services appears to be the most effective form of intervention.”

And you can see this reflected in the job description for the role of family whānau lead

“The Family/Whānau Lead will have a strategic focus on the inclusion and participation of family and whānau in the services we provide across our Health and Disability services and Housing services. An essential part of this role is to ensure we are inclusive and responsive to family/whānau voice at a governance, operational and service delivery level.”  Family/Whānau Lead Job Description, 2023.

Emerge Aotearoa uses a Te Ao Māori lens when looking at whānau engagement. This has three levels

• whakapapa whānau
• kaupapa whānau and
• hāpori whānau.

This allows people accessing our services to better determine who is important to them in their life.

As the family whānau lead, I play a key role in creating opportunities to collaborate so that feedback, reliable data, and clear procedures enable our service delivery teams to provide whānau responsive services. This is an intentional approach towards whānau engagement, to prioritise people and their whānau. And it aligns with our organisational goals

• Māori succeeding as Māori
• thriving Pacific Peoples and
• Lived and Living Experience and diversity are privileged.

It also supports whānau to build resilience and feel more at ease with supporting their person as they walk through their health and social services journey.