Tuesday, April 27, 2010

New relationship for Te Whiuwhiu o te Hau programme

Kia ora, the Te Whiuwhiu o te hau programme based at Wintec, Hamilton, has been considering some major changes to their governance and delivery models. The team, Rawiri, Maria and Carol are guiding the process. Rawiri explains how their partnership relationship with the Counselling endorsement is operating. I hope to be there in July to share my Ph.D findings with the staff and students. Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui, Taima

Te Whiuwhiu o te Hau Maori Counselling Relationship by Rawiri David Waretini-Karena

Te Whiuwhiu O Te Hau Maori Counselling has entered into a relationship with the Counselling Endorsement. We are creating a from parallel to Partnership relationship that stipulates that each paradigm stay true to their worldviews, but also create shared space to move into others areas in terms of sharing views on social constructionism and understanding Societies and Relationships. The foundation of this relationship comes from the model that we are constructing as a team. I am also taking this concept to another level in my own developing model.

We as a team are examining at what does the Treaty Partnership look like and how will this new vision work within a bi-cultural relationship. There have been new initiatives created within the School of Development as a result of Te Whiuwhiu O Te Hau Maori Counselling joining the School. The school has agreed to implement Karakia & Waiata in all hui. All staff regardless of ethnicity has to begin with a Karakia i roto Te Reo Maori. This has not been a practice of the School previously.

The hope is that it will filter into the mainstream classrooms where it will be a common practice amongst all mainstream classes. The impact of this for Te Whiuwhiu is that we are moving into more traditional Moteatea and manawawera and ngeri bringing us even closer to things kaupapa Maori. We also have Basic Te Reo as part of our curriculum now so these are some significant changes that have taken place with Te Whiuwhiu O Te Hau Maori Counselling.

Te Whiuwhiu currently has 14 year one students. This is quite a resurgence from the year before in 2009 where we ended up with three students. What was evident when research was done on why the numbers were so low is that Te Whiuwhiu O Te Hau had a lack of support, lack of resources and an expectation that we would fade away.
However, we have worked hard and as a result actually started out with approx 25 students for 2010 but due to DHB and Ministry of Social Development criteria of whom has decided to only fund social work resulted in Te Whiuwhiu O Te Hau losing 11 students. We do not have a year two student program running in 2010 but we have 13 year 3 students.

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