Transcript
The attendance at Manukau Institute of Technology's Nga Kete Wānanga Marae showed the Pacific community's strong desire to be heard on the topic of mental health. The wharenui was full but powhiri and supper were first on the agenda. Fed and made welcome, the community were invited to share their often challenging experiences. A mental health worker stood to question why non-Pacific focused organisations are delivering mental health services for the Pasifika community. Sailauama Cheryl Talamaivao said a lack of cultural competence in the sector was a hindrance to the mental health prospects of the Pasifika community. She cited a company contracted in her area of West Auckland.
"They have service delivery for Pacific but there is no accountabilities or cultural protocols or any kind of comparison to how they are doing. So who decides that they have this contract? Why would you have a non-Pacific organisation doing service delivery for Pasifika?"
According to Sailauama, some District Health Boards ensured high levels of cultural fluency, but oversight was needed to ensure providers were culturally fit for purpose. A member of the deaf community reinforced her point, saying the hearing community seldom recognised their different cultural needs. The co-head of Pacific studies at Auckland University, Jemaima Tiatia-Seath, was one of the government panellists. She agreed with the need for cultural competencies within agencies who dealt with mentally fragile people and whose needs were already compromised by society.
"There are lots of instances we're hearing across the country in terms of Pasifika communities and that it is actually quite detrimental to be privileging certain agencies that don't have those cultural nuances or cultural competencies."
She said the community wanted this rectified, and to see a stronger Pasifika contribution to the sector's workforce, at all levels. Dr Tiatia-Seath said she has been pleased with the talanoa across the various nationwide fono but she'd like to see a more diverse Pasifika perspective. Representing the Pasifika youth perspective is another of the panellists, Josiah Tualamali'i. He said that while the youth representation has not been strong at the various fono, their participation has come from the online world.
"The system can often look at us and say Samoan young people don't need a Samoan approach necessarily or the New Zealand born and island born, and then the inter-sectionality of LGBITIQI+ young people that may not have as much of a voice. We're hearing a lot from all the communities around Aotearoa how need bespoke, how we need tailored."
He said the one-size-fits-all approach was no longer appropriate for an increasingly diverse Pasifika community. West Auckland's mental health worker Sailauama Cheryl Talamaivao said funding needed to be channeled to where it could best support the community's needs.
"If you don't value the Pasifika workers in there, how can you implement any Pasifika holistic model of care? You know, we're Pasifika and we have our own models of practice."
Sailauama said that in multi-cultural New Zealand in the 21st century, the community should be determining its own future. Recommendations arising from the consultations will be referred to the government for future mental health policy.
