Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand

🚨 FREE MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK PACKS NOW AVAILABLE FOR ORDER! 🚨 Centred around this year’s theme ‘Community is…what we create together’, these resources will help your workplace celebrate the power of community in uplifting our wellbeing both during MHAW and beyond. Order NOW before they’re all gone! 🏃♂️ 💨 Visit shop.mhaw.nz.

Hampden Street School were one of three schools that won free Pink Shirt Day 2024 tees for ALL their tamariki! 👚 Check out these smiley faces! Their senior students handed them out early last week - creating a beautiful sea of pink. Kōrero Mai, Kōrero Atu, Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora – Speak Up, Stand Together, Stop Bullying!

Join our Campaigns and Events team! Are you passionate about improving mental health outcomes for Māori? Do you have a deep understanding of te ao Māori, are proficient in te reo (both written and spoken), and feel confident representing a cause in the media? We’d love to hear from you! We are reviewing applications as they come and will close the role when we have found the right person so don't wait! https://lnkd.in/gNFupjAt

FREE resource packs will be available for order next week! 📚 These packs contain so many goodies to help you and your workplace make the most of this year’s #MHAWNZ theme: Community is… what we create together. 💜 💛 🤍 Tear-off whakawhetai/gratitude posters, flyers, postcard sets, wallet cards, and more… each resource has been designed to help you define, build, and celebrate community – however that looks for you. Packs won’t last long, so make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list to get first access: https://mhaw.nz/register. 💌

📢 CALLING FOR EVENT SUBMISSIONS! 📢 Are you holding an event in your community during Mental Health Awareness Week (23 – 29 Sep)? Visit https://lnkd.in/g66kE2kp and submit it to our calendar now. This is an easy way to get your event in front of as many eyes as possible - we'll be sharing them across our channels leading up to the big week. Wellbeing webinar, yoga class, hīkoi, māra kai, art exhibition, meditation... there are so many ways to foster connection in your community and let people know they’re not alone. #MHAWNZ

Here are the five daily activities to help define, build, and celebrate our communities this Mental Health Awareness Week! Inspired by our recent community wellbeing research, as well as Te Whare Tapa Whā and the Five Ways of Wellbeing, these activities have been designed to strengthen your support network and improve your wellbeing. Sign up for updates to be the first to access free resources, posters and activities as they are released: https://mhaw.nz/register. Stay tuned, whānau! #MHAWNZ 💜💛🤍

Check out the research behind this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) theme: ‘Community is… what we create together’. 🔎 We commissioned this research to understand the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle and other extreme weather events on wellbeing – and what helped people get through. The power of community came out on top, and so this #MHAWNZ, let’s celebrate it. 🙌 Head to mhaw.nz for more information.

Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) is next month! 📅 From 23 – 29 September, join us in celebrating the power of community in uplifting our collective wellbeing. 💜 💛 🤍 Four out of ten New Zealanders surveyed felt lonely at least some of the time in the past two weeks. This MHAW, let’s help each other feel less alone. Featuring stories, events, resources, activities, and much more, there will be so many ways to connect with community or create your own – whatever that looks like for you. Sign up to our email newsletter (mhaw.nz/register) to be kept up to date on all things #MHAWNZ. More coming soon! 👀

Hāpaitia te ara tika pūmau ai te rangatiratanga mō ngā uri whakatupu.  Foster the pathway of knowledge to strength, independence and growth for future generations.    We’re proud to have written a position statement on the importance of supporting Māori to exercise tino rangatiratanga, and thus enjoy greater wellbeing.    We wrote this position statement alongside our Māori Engagement Team, as an organisation continually striving to be a Te Tiriti o Waitangi partner.    ‘Tino rangatiratanga’ refers to collective Māori control over collective Māori taonga (treasures), which include wellbeing. It’s a right guaranteed to Māori in Article Two of Te Tiriti, and a right inseparable for Māori from Māori wellbeing.    We want to see an Aotearoa New Zealand which upholds tino rangatiratanga in our health and social systems. We want policy and decision-makers to understand the real, positive change this can make, and the harm that can be caused when tino rangatiratanga isn’t upheld.     We offer actionable recommendations to make this vision a reality.    Want to learn more? Read our full position statement and recommendations: https://lnkd.in/gHhwvhYh  

Note: This content discusses abuse, and may be triggering for some readers. At 4pm yesterday, a landmark report was published. It held nearly 3,000 testimonies, was over 3,000 pages long, and incorporated nearly 100 days’ worth of public hearings. But it wasn’t its size or length that made Whanaketia, the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s report into Abuse in Care significant. It was significant, because it publicly acknowledged that hundreds of thousands of unimaginable acts of cruelty and negligence, towards our nation’s babies, children, young people and adults, had been carried out by the State and faith-based institutions since 1950. Our hearts go out to the at least 200,000 people in Aotearoa New Zealand who were abused, and many more grossly neglected, when they should have been cared for and kept safe. Our thoughts are with the many survivors who spoke at public hearings; who submitted documents to the Inquiry; who shared their stories; and with those who were simply unable to.  We hold in our thoughts especially those who shared their stories, at any time of their lives, and were not believed or heard. Our aroha lies with survivors who deserved redress, and are not here to see this report made public. And it lies with the whānau and friends of survivors, who supported them both when the report was published yesterday, and every day. It’s important that our nation takes away key learnings from this report, and actions them, both to redress wrongs and to actively protect and keep safe New Zealanders in state care today. Mā te whakātu, ka mohio, mā te mohio ka marama, mā te marama ka matau, mā te matau ka ora.  Pa Henare Tate With discussion comes knowledge, with knowledge comes light and understanding, with light and understanding comes wisdom, with wisdom comes wellness.