Te Hiringa Mahara’s 2024 Report
In June, Te Hiringa Mahara (the Mental Health & Wellbeing Commission) released their 2024 Mental Health & Addiction Services Monitoring Report: Kua Tīmata Te Haerenga | The Journey Has Begun.
Kua Tīmata Te Haerenga is the third of Te Hiringa Mahara's Mental Health & Addiction Services Monitoring reports. Its purpose is to monitor mental health and addiction services over the five-year period from July 2018 to June 2023, with a focus on access to services and options available. It calls for urgent improvement across a range of critical areas, making five key recommendations.
These are that by June 2025:
Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora develops a mental health and addiction workforce plan to address service capacity and workforce shortages
Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora develops an action plan to meet the needs of Māori and whānau accessing specialist mental health and addiction services
Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora provides guidance for the delivery of effective acute community options that meet the needs of rangatahi and youth
Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora develops a mental health and addiction data plan that ensures information systems are integrated, ensuring quality and timely data
The Government commits to funding a planned programme of work to collect mental health and addiction prevalence data.
As well as giving us the opportunity to understand what's happening within our services, Kua Timata Te Haerenga is also an important opportunity to celebrate the inclusion of the Lived Experience and whānau perspective. More than 300 online responses were received from Lived Experience and whānau voices, together with contributions from focus groups and sector interviews. Our Chief Engagement Officer Jodie Bennett also contributed to the report through her role as an advisor to Te Hiringa Mahara.
It's thanks to the tireless work of the Lived Experience movement over the last 20 years that our voices were sought out and heard. We'd like to acknowledge Te Hiringa Mahara for seeking out and including the voices of the Lived Experience community in this mahi, and thank our Tangata Matau a-wheako community for your courage and generosity in sharing your stories. It’s your stories that put people at the centre, adding an important narrative to the many statistics the report shares.