We have created a framework called He Ara Āwhina, which means pathways to support. He Ara Āwhina describes what an ideal mental health and addiction system looks like. This will be used to assess, monitor, and advocate for improvements to the mental health and addiction system of Aotearoa, including services.
He Ara Āwhina has intentionally been written to amplify the most important voices – tāngata whaiora and whānau as leaders of their wellbeing and recovery, and the system responding to their needs and aspirations. What people told us in our 2022 He Ara Āwhina framework consultation, and the changes made in response, have been summarised in four ‘voices’ documents.
Our Goal: a whānau dynamic mental health and addiction system
He Ara Āwhina has a goal of a whānau-dynamic mental health and addiction system. Whānau dynamic means to realise the potential of whānau. It lends to the knowledge whānau hold collectively and extends the boundaries of whānau centred to be strengths-based, positive, and inspiring.
The final version of He Ara Āwhina was published 30 June 2022. We have published two versions of the framework – a summary version that is focused on the system aspirations, and the full framework that includes detailed descriptions of what an ideal mental health and addiction system looks like.
Click on the image below to download the summary version of He Ara Āwhina.
We will use He Ara Āwhina to monitor services and whether the mental health and addiction system is functioning as needed to enable wellbeing alongside the He Ara Oranga wellbeing outcomes framework, which will be used more broadly to monitor wellbeing. These partner frameworks are designed to work together.
Click on the image below to learn more.
Two perspectives and the system aspirations
There are two perspectives in He Ara Āwhina that describe what an ideal mental health and addiction system looks like:
These two perspectives work together, for instance the shared perspective also applies to Māori. They are not direct translations of each other, but weave together reflecting the role that Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti have to play – working together to support improving the collective wellbeing of all.
Each perspective of He Ara Āwhina has six system aspirations that describe what good looks like for tāngata whaiora and whānau from their voice. These aspirations represent the important issues raised by communities during the mental health and addiction inquiry as well as our development and engagement processes.
An Expert Advisory Group (EAG) of external contributors provided oversight and advice throughout the development of He Ara Āwhina.
We are currently in the important stage of the mahi (work) to develop the methods and measures for how we will monitor and assess the mental health and addiction system.
We have established a Technical Advisory Network (TAN) to provide advice and expertise of methods, measures, data sources and data gaps.
