Resisting Hybridity in Community-Based Third Sector Organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand

Author(s):  
Jenny Aimers ◽  
Peter Walker
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Gloria Fraser

<p>While we know that rainbow people in Aotearoa New Zealand (that is, people of diverse sexualities, genders, and sex characteristics) experience high rates of adverse mental health outcomes, we know much less about the extent to which Aotearoa’s rainbow community members are receiving the mental health support they need. To address this gap I used mixed methods and a reflexive community-based approach to extend current understandings of rainbow mental health support experiences, and to explore how the provision of mental health care can be improved for rainbow people in New Zealand.  I first conducted interviews with 34 rainbow community young adults about their experiences of accessing mental health support. My thematic analysis showed that rainbow people across New Zealand faced significant structural barriers to accessing mental health support. Participants understood mental health settings as embedded within a heteronormative and cisnormative societal context, rather than as a safe place outside this context. This, together with a widespread silence from mental health professionals around rainbow identity, meant that participants actively negotiated coming out in mental health settings. Participants shared a variety of perspectives as to whether it should be standard practice for mental health professionals to ask about rainbow identities, but agreed on a number of subtle acts that could communicate a professional or service is rainbow-friendly. Knowledge about sexuality, gender, and sex characteristic diversity, together with clinical skills of empathy, validation, and affirmation, were described as key components for the provision of effective mental health support.  I conducted a second thematic analysis of data from a subset of the initial interviews, in which 13 participants discussed their experiences of accessing gender-affirming healthcare. Participants reported a lack of funding for gender-affirming healthcare in New Zealand, and described its provision a “postcode lottery”; the care available was largely dependent on the region participants were living in. Mental health assessments for accessing gender-affirming care were often described as tests of whether participants were “really” transgender, and participants discussed the need to express their gender in a particular way in order to access the healthcare they needed.  Thematic analyses of interview data informed the development of an online survey about rainbow peoples’ experiences of accessing mental health support and gender-affirming healthcare in New Zealand (n = 1575). Survey results closely reflected interview findings, indicating that rainbow people have mixed experiences in New Zealand’s mental health settings, and that accessing gender-affirming healthcare is a lengthy and convoluted process.   Finally, interview and survey data were used to develop a resource for mental health professionals, to guide their work with rainbow clients. I sought and incorporated feedback from key stakeholders (n = 108) during resource development. I then distributed the resource to mental health professionals around New Zealand, both in print and online.  Overall, my research shows that widespread knowledge gaps compromise the ability of New Zealand’s mental health professionals to provide culturally competent support to rainbow clients. Knowledge from this thesis can be used to increase awareness of rainbow community members’ mental health support needs, and to inform mental health professionals’ training and self-reflection around sexuality, gender, and sex characteristic diversity.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9369
Author(s):  
Kelly Dombroski ◽  
Gradon Diprose ◽  
Emma Sharp ◽  
Rebekah Graham ◽  
Louise Lee ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated response have brought food security into sharp focus for many New Zealanders. The requirement to “shelter in place” for eight weeks nationwide, with only “essential services” operating, affected all parts of the New Zealand food system. The nationwide full lockdown highlighted existing inequities and created new challenges to food access, availability, affordability, distribution, transportation, and waste management. While Aotearoa New Zealand is a food producer, there remains uncertainty surrounding the future of local food systems, particularly as the long-term effects of the pandemic emerge. In this article we draw on interviews with food rescue groups, urban farms, community organisations, supermarket management, and local and central government staff to highlight the diverse, rapid, community-based responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings reveal shifts at both the local scale, where existing relationships and short supply chains have been leveraged quickly, and national scale, where funding has been mobilised towards a different food strategy. We use these findings to re-imagine where and how responsibility might be taken up differently to enhance resilience and care in diverse food systems in New Zealand.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Linda Mitchell

The article analyses a market-based approach to early childhood education (ECE) provision and the growth of for-profit ECE provision, evidence about ‘quality’ and accessibility, and problems occurring when a need for private profit conflicts with the best interests of families and children. The issue of for-profit provision is set within the context of international developments and solutions in Europe, UK, US and Canada. Immediate steps that might be taken for a democratic system of community-based and public early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand are pinpointed. Overall, the article offers possibilities for asserting democratic values as a way towards alternatives in Aotearoa New Zealand’s early childhood education provision.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor HOLROYD ◽  
Nicholas J. LONG ◽  
Nayantara Sheoran APPLETON ◽  
Sharyn Graham DAVIES ◽  
Antje DECKERT ◽  
...  

Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Aotearoa New Zealand, a stringent lockdown lasting seven weeks was introduced to manage community spread of the virus. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study examining how lockdown policies impacted upon the lives of those caring for community-based patients. The study involved nationwide surveys and ethnographic interviews with 15 registered nurses (RN) employed in community settings, two community midwives, and five personal care assistants (PCAs). During the strict lockdown levels 4 and 3, RNs and PCAs in the community showed considerable courage in answering their 'call to duty' by taking on heightened care responsibilities and going 'the extra mile' to help others. They faced significant risks to personal and professional relationships when they were required to take on additional and complex responsibilities for community-based patients. Despite, and sometimes due to the hypervigilant monitoring of their personal protective equipment (PPE), the need to safeguard family and community members generated considerable stress and anxiety. Many also faced personal isolation and loneliness as a result of lockdown restrictions. Although 'care' and 'kindness' became social expectations throughout Aotearoa New Zealand during the lockdown, RNs and PCAs who were already doing care work in patient homes had to do more. This article makes five core service delivery and policy recommendations for supporting community-based nurses and PCAs in respiratory disease pandemics: acknowledging the crucial role played by community-based carers and the associated stress and anxiety endured, through championing respect and compassion; demystifying the 'heroism' or 'self-sacrifice' projected onto care workers to facilitate boundary setting; the timely provision of adequate protective equipment; improving remuneration with adequate provision for time off; and regular counselling, peer support groups, and education on work-life balance delivered by support workers in recognition of stressors arising from these complex and isolated working conditions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Douglas ◽  
Jemma L Geoghegan ◽  
James Hadfield ◽  
Remco Bouckaert ◽  
Matthew Storey ◽  
...  

There have been thirteen known COVID-19 community outbreaks in Aotearoa New Zealand since the virus was first eliminated in May 2020, two of which led to stay-at-home orders being issued by health officials. These outbreaks originated at the border; via isolating returnees, airline workers, and cargo vessels. With a public health system informed by real-time viral genomic sequencing which typically had complete genomes within 12 hours after a community-based positive COVID-19 test, every outbreak was well-contained with a total of 225 community cases, resulting in three deaths. Real-time genomics were essential for establishing links between cases when epidemiological data could not, and for identifying when concurrent outbreaks had different origins. By reconstructing the viral transmission history from genomic sequences, here we recount all thirteen community outbreaks and demonstrate how genomics played a vital role in containing them.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Stephen Cowden ◽  
Sukhwant Dhaliwal ◽  
Rebecca Durand

The focus of this Issue is the UK’s counter-terrorist programme ‘Prevent’.  As a number of articles explain, this policy developed out of the wider policy agenda of CONTEST which was developed by the UK government following the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda in New York in 2001. Many readers may be wondering why we would devote a whole issue to this particular policy.  Our reason for doing this is that the issues raised in the debate around Prevent and what it represents impinge directly on concerns around the rise of fundamentalism and its ongoing project of establishing hegemony across religious and political fields, as well as state responses to that.  In this issue we have sought to create a space to raise concerns that have not figured in the dominant understanding of Prevent in the eyes of both its supporters and its critics. The Prevent policy is presently having a significant impact on a whole range of areas within the British state – on Further and Higher Education, Probation and Social Work, third sector organisations, women’s organisations, Local Authorities as well as on religious institutions and movements, and on community based political activism.  Yet the polarised nature of the debate around Prevent means that we know very little about how these impacts are playing out, and in particular how the responses and practices which are being adopted are impacting on women as well as on other vulnerable groups.  These are the concerns we have sought to give voice to in this issue.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Denison ◽  
Graeme Johanson

Abstract This paper aims to fill an international gap in knowledge about the adoption of information and communication technologies by third sector organisations. In Australia, the United Kingdom, USA, and Canada, such research that exists into the usefulness of the spread of ICT into community-based organizations, is limited in its coverage and by its tendency to rely on a management approach to analysis. This paper summarizes findings of all of the identifiable surveys, compares their findings, and proposes the use of Social Network Theory as a more useful lens through which to analyse current developments.


2021 ◽  
pp. 104973232199864
Author(s):  
Cervantée E. K. Wild ◽  
Ngauru T. Rawiri ◽  
Donna M. Cormack ◽  
Esther J. Willing ◽  
Paul L. Hofman ◽  
...  

We describe the approach of an Indigenous–non-Indigenous research partnership in the context of a qualitative study which aimed to understand barriers and facilitators to engagement in a community-based healthy lifestyles program in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Informed by Kaupapa Māori research principles and by “Community-Up” research values, this collaborative approach between the mixed Māori–non-Māori research team effectively engaged with Māori and non-Māori families for in-depth interviews on participant experience, including with non-service users. “Community-Up” research principles allowed for a respectful process which upheld the mana (status, dignity) of the interview participants and the research team. Challenges included maintaining flexibility in our conceptions of ethnicity to reflect the complexity of modern family life in Aotearoa/New Zealand. We were committed to ongoing communication, awareness, and attention to the relationships that formed the basis of our research partnership, which allowed effective navigation of challenges and was critical to the study’s success.


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