Better Futures Hauraki

Thanks to the Ministry of Social Development’s Family and Community Services Department, Hauraki District Council has an established forum which focuses on two of Hauraki's Community Outcomes and a variety of visions, missions and targets for other organsiations.

The Better Futures Hauraki Forum is made up of representatives from key social service agencies, the Police, and Hauraki District Council. The social services agencies include:

• Ministry of Social Development
• Ministry of Youth Development
• Ministry of Education
• Ministry of Justice
• Department of Labour
• Department of Corrections
• Department of Internal Affairs
• Child, Youth and Family Services
• Hauraki Family Start
• Hauraki Maori Trust Board
• NZ Police
• Waikato District Health Board
• Hauraki Family Violence Intervention Network
• Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki
• Hauraki schools
• Wintec

Since our recent mayoral forum, even more agencies have expressed an interest in coming on board.

Background

In 2006 after the identification of Hauraki's Community Outcomes, a Family and Community Services Local Services Mapping project was conducted in Hauraki. This provided us with the Hauraki Community Report, which maps the social services in our region, and identifies priority areas.

From this project, 'youth' were identified as a target audience, and two visions were described:

• To provide nurturing and safe home environments for all Hauraki Children
• To encourage positive engagement with education, work and the community for all Hauraki Young People.

Action and success

The project hasn't ended here. The working party continues to meet, and has produced an action plan.

The working party has already made progress on a number of action points from the plan. Success stories include:

• Establishing weekly meetings of family violence agencies to manage and prompt effective responses to cases where police have been called out
• Developing a District wide Domestic Violence Policy
• Promoting a child friendly community through initiatives such as Children’s Days and awards
• Providing professional help on how to build resiliency for staff of secondary schools
• Exploring possibilities of community use of schools.
• Developing the health centres that have been established in each school.

The Mayor of Hauraki has been very impressed by the results of this plan and is especially pleased with the collaborative approach taken. His commitment to the project was reflected in a mayoral forum held recently which included regional commissioners and chief executives of the organisations involved in Better Futures Hauraki.

The forum discussed the work to date and confirmed support for that work. At the forum, it was announced that the Mayor will take over as Chair of the Better Futures Hauraki project from Family and Community Services.

After seeing the success of Better Futures Hauraki, I strongly advocate that other councils participate in Family and Community Services Local Mapping Studies

Further information

• For the Local Services Mapping: Hauraki report (and soon the action plan) please follow this link:
  http://www.familyservices.govt.nz/our-work/community-development/local-services-mapping/hauraki.html.

  This website also shows the other mapping documents conducted by Family and Community Services.

• For further information about Better Futures Hauraki, please contact:
  
  
  • Katy Hurd, Policy Analyst, Hauraki District Council - email katy@hauraki-dc.govt.nz
  • Jenny Dowthwaite, Regional Relationship Manager, Ministry of Social Development - email jenny.dowthwaite001@msd.govt.nz
• Family and Community Services - Local Services Mapping
• Current community outcomes for Hauraki District

Many thanks to Katy Hurd for providing us with this story.