Mana Ake - Mental health support for children
Mana Ake provides early intervention to promote wellbeing and mental health support for our primary and intermediate aged tamariki across Te Tai Tokerau.
The aim is to help enhance resilience, wairua, and mana so they are ‘stronger for tomorrow’.
About Mana Ake
Mana Ake Karakia
E atawhai ana mātou
Te whakatōkia o ngā kakano i ruia mai
E nga māhuri tōtara e tipu ana mō āpōpō.
Nā tātou katoa hei awhi te kaupapa,
Hei mana ake te tū tauira tonu ai.
Haumi ē, Hui ē, Tāiki ē
We nurture and protect
the seeds sown near and far,
so that they may grow into mighty tōtara for a not so distant tomorrow.
We embrace our responsibility
To encourage students on a path of lifelong learning.
Unified! Together! Strong!
What we do
Mana Ake provides a new approach to delivering additional mental health support for children in primary and intermediate schools across the Te Tai Tokerau region.
Mana Ake seeks to provide holistic support through:
- Direct support to children experiencing social, emotional, or behavioural challenges
- Clarification of local support pathways, making it easier for schools, teachers and whānau to access support when and where they need it
- Support for schools to make improvements to the school environment using whole-of-school and classroom wellbeing programmes and wellbeing promotion
- Service sector improvements by providing greater collaboration across Health, Education, and social sector partners in the provision of support.
Mana Ake is strongly aligned with the recommendations made in He Ara Oranga: Report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction (He Ara Oranga) to better equip teachers, schools, and communities to respond to the wellbeing needs of Tamariki, support Tamariki to build resilience and coping strategies, and to increase access to early intervention support.
Our guiding principles
We are:
- mana enhancing
- early intervention
- flexible and responsive.
We embrace:
- all tamariki and whānau
- Te Ao Māori
- localised solution.
How we work
Our services
Mana Ake works with local school communities to enhance wellbeing outcomes for tamariki. It provides strengths-based, evidence-informed, wellbeing and mental health support to children in the context of their school, whānau, community, and natural networks of support. This table below outlines a framework and menu of services Mana Ake may be able to offer based on the needs of the schools and tamariki involved.
Community partners
Te Whatu Ora in Te Tai Tokerau have partnered with 7 community and iwi organisations to help us to deliver Mana Ake services. Our community partners will employ the Mana Ake kaimahi who will be based within schools. Our community partners have been chosen because of the range of support that they already offer within the communities including existing school-based services.
Our community providers along with the Te Whatu Ora team will be working together to ensure that services are provided in a consistent way across Te Tai Tokerau.
Our community partners are:
- Arataki Ministries (Whangārei area and Kaipara) aratakimin.co.nz (external link)
- Te Hau Ora o Ngāpuhi (Whangārei and mid north) tehauoraongapuhi.org (external link)
- Ngāpuhi Iwi Social Services (Whangārei and Mid North) ngapuhi.iwi.nz/niss (external link)
- Hauora Hokianga Health Trust (Hokianga) hokiangahealth.org.nz (external link)
- Te Mana Oranga Trust (Far North)
- Te Rarawa (Far North) Te Rarawa | Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa
Te Rarawa | Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa (external link) - Toi Oho Creative Activators (Far North)
Referral process
We recommend you speak with the school to decide if a referral to Mana Ake is appropriate for your child or young person. The school will follow this referral process.
Refer
- School identifies at their SENCO or pastoral meeting their needs for Mana Ake service provision based on 'Expectations of needs that would come to us' guide.
- School leadership contacts Mana Ake Kaiārahi by phone/email OR presents at Mana Ake cluster hui.
- Basic description of need provided by school.
- Exploration meeting planned.
Explore
- Kaiārahi meets with school staff to explore service delivery options available.
- Decision made about service delivery option at Mana Ake staff cluster triage meeting.
- Kaiārahi activates Kaimahi resource.
- Initial focus on Universal (i.e. School-Wide) and Group supports.
Respond
- School facilitates internal organisation/comms required for delivery of service.
- Kaimahi resource delivers service. 15 week check-in post service commencing.
- Identification of individuals partaking in service requiring more intensive 1:1 or ongoing support.
- Informed consent gained (for individual work).
- Appropriate supported referral to include other services or additional Mana Ake service offered.
Information for schools
School phasing and resource allocation (by region)
Mana Ake will be taking a phased approach to implementation across the 2023 and 2024 school years. If you would like to receive more information about when your school or region comes online for the service, please feel free to contact us. Otherwise, one of our team will be in touch with your school when we are ready to offer the service to your school.
Indicators for Mana Ake Support
Mana Ake provides support for students in years 1-8, where possible, early in the life of a wellbeing or mental health concern. Early intervention helps to prevent problems escalating and ensures students have the greatest likelihood of remaining engaged and achieving at school.
If you feel a child in your classroom or school displays a range of indicators that may suggest an emerging wellbeing or mental health concern and have observed these consistently for any extended time, please follow the school referral process.
Information for parents
We recommend you speak with the school to decide if a referral to Mana Ake is appropriate for your child or young person.
Download the Mana Ake flyerPDF1.3 MB
Supporting your child
Our Mana Ake Canterbury site has pulled together lots of useful information for supporting your child.
Information for agencies
Pūmau - our centralised wellbeing information website for schools and professionals
HUIA publishers have nearly completed the first stage of our online platform that will provide access and resources for teachers and professionals to ‘Recognise, Respond and Refer’ to all student wellbeing pathways. If you are a wellbeing agency or professional working in schools in Te Tai Tokerau and wish to access this platform then please contact us.
School Wellbeing Agency Directory
We are now collecting local agency information across Te Tai Tokerau so that wellbeing pathways can be connected to local supports via the agency directory connected to the Pūmau platform above. If you are an agency or aware of any agencies that your school already work with and you would like to be featured in this directory, then please complete this online form.
Contact us
In an emergency
In an emergency call 111 and ask for an ambulance.
Contact after-hours general practitioners (external link)
Mental health emergency (internal link)
Feedback or more information
If you would like more information about Mana Ake, or would like to send us your feedback, please fill in the contact us form.