Affiliates

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Nāku Ēnei Tamariki (Māori Section)

Nāku Ēnei Tamariki Inc. is a pro active intensive early intervention home visiting support service for young parents and their pepe in stressful circumstances.  Established in 1993, NET operates three cultural units – Māori, Pacific Island and Pākehā.  All services are confidential and free to the client.

The Māori Section of NET has been based at Kokiri Marae in Seaview since its inception in 1993. NET Māori Section operates the following services:

• Early Intervention (Nurture, Enjoy, Teach Programme)
• Parents As First Teachers
• Family Start (Māori and Pacific)
• Haakuitanga Hakorotanga Parenting Programme

Each cultural unit of NET is managed by a committee made up of members of their community, whilst the elected Governance Board of Nāku Ēnei Tamariki Inc. is responsible for the overall governance of the organisation. 

Current Māori Section Committee members are:

1. Beau Markland (Chair)
2. Dina Awarau
3. Teresea Olsen
4. Cheryl Davies
5. Maki Parker
6. Ema Weepu (advisor)

Early Intervention (nurture, enjoy, teach)

Early intervention is based on the principle that the first years of a child’s life are important. The Nurture, Enjoy, Teach programme is an intensive long-term home visiting programme that:

• helps parents build a loving and nurturing relationship with their tamariki
• provides information on brain and child development
• provides advice on behaviour problems
• promotes the uptake of the national immunisation programme
• supports mums to maintain breastfeeding
• educates parents on safety issues in the home for tamariki
• assists with access to health care providers and other services
• enables problems to be discussed
• provides support and education groups (held weekly for mums to share ideas and provide support to each other)
  

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Parents as First Teachers (PAFT)

PAFT is based on the philosophy that parents are the first and most important teacher of their tamariki, and offers support and guidance to parents in this role.  It is a three year home visiting education programme targeted at babies from aged 0 – 3yrs.  Trained Parent Educators provide:

• monthly home visits to share information, practical ideas
• guidance to parents to help their tamariki grow and develop
• continual checks of children’s growth and development
• group meetings giving opportunities to share experiences and concerns

What sort of information will parents get?

• what to look for and expect as tamariki grow and develop
• ways to help tamariki grow to their full potential
• ways to provide exciting, educational and inexpensive experiences using everyday experiences as learning opportunities
• how to help tamariki develop a love of books and stories
• practical ideas on creating a safe environment that is exciting and fun

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Family Start

Family Start is an early intervention programme that involves identifying whānau in need of support around the time of the child’s birth and provides a whānau worker to assist where social and family circumstances may put at risk good health, education and welfare outcomes for tamariki.  Family Start is based on building strengths within whānau to ensure their tamariki have the best possible start in life and offers a service that will:

• provide a whānau worker who will be the main support person to the whānau
• meet the cultural needs of the whānau
• seek to improve health, education and social outcomes
• assist parents to improve their parenting ability
• support parents to improve their personal and whānau circumstances
• help whānau work out their goals and plan for the future
• visit whānau in their home

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Haakuitanga Haakorotanga Parenting Programme

Is a Māori parenting skills programme that gives Māori parents understanding of, and learning in, effective parenting skills. The programme focuses on the parent's own attitudes to children and parenting by allowing them to explore the way they were parented and how this influences the way they parent their tamariki.

The programme consists of the following components:

• human development, focusing on infancy, childhood and adolescence
• self-esteem, personal development and goal setting
• parent and child safety, including physical and emotional
• behaviour management for parents and children
• positive parenting skills
• ongoing parent support strategies in whānau and community

Underpinning Haakuitanga Haakorotanga is the principle that all parents desire the best for their tamariki and whānau.  Lack of knowledge and understanding about parenting and child development, and shortcomings in effective ways of parenting often prevent the positive development of many whānau.

Haakuitanga Haakorotanga sets out to address those shortcomings by guiding participants through a learning process assessing themselves and the parenting role they undertake with their tamariki¹.

The outline of this programme was developed by Te Kōmako, the Māori training and support unit within Early Childhood Development (ECD) and has been made available for further development and use by Nāku Ēnei Tamariki (Māori Section).

¹ Atawhaingia Te Pa Harakeke : Training & Professional Support Manual. Te Komako, Ministry of Education

Related Documents

Referral Form (PDF 63Kb)

HHM Parenting Programme Enrolment Form (PDF 73Kb)

Further Information

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