don't know how you feel about sharing your email, so we can keep in touch about "local" developments, but I've begun swapping a few emails with a nurse educator at Southland DHB, Colette Ryan Rafter, who delivered a talk on TIC at the recent MH Nurses conference, and who has today sent me this email --- great news imho:
"Hi Russell,
The presentation was well received at the College Conference and Hawkes Bay DHB made contact with me and requested that I send them information/resources etc., so that was good. I am attending a conference in Sydney in November called ‘Broken Structures, Broken Selves – Complex Trauma in the 21st Century’, I am hopeful that this will help me to understand and learn more, and disseminate that knowledge through ongoing teaching/education. I am also looking forward to the networking opportunities that this will allow and hope that as a collective group across Australia and New Zealand we can raise the importance of recognising trauma within Mental health and Addiction settings. I agree wholeheartedly that the experts are the people themselves who have experienced trauma and there is much to learn from survivors.
Do you know Johnnie Potiki, our consumer advisor? He is in the process of putting together a consumer counsel within the DHB, is that something you would be interested in? I could put him in touch with you, if you don’t already know him. He is currently on leave, but will return on Oct 12th. The other person that we work quite closely with is Grant Cooper from the Otago Mental Health Support Trust.
I am currently doing in-service education on Trauma Informed Care across the sector (DHB and non-DHB) and also with Public Health Nurses, I was also asked (as a consequence of the college presentation), if I could do some training with PACT staff in Wellington, unfortunately I was not able to do so, due to other commitments. The other person who contacted me was Janet Peters (Psychologist), she is very keen to have a group of people nationally to help move Trauma Informed Care and Services forward.
There is still some resistance to the work as it moves away from a medical model approach but I am optimistic for the future and I would very much like to be kept informed about your work.
Kind regards,
Colette"
I used to work for Whangaui AOD Services (Whanganui DHB) and did an annual "mini-survey" sending out a request for info about which services were doing anything about providing trauma informed services there -- several said they had "thought about it", but only Northland actually had done more (though exactly what I'm not sure) -- admittedly, this was about 7 years ago, and things "might" have improved but ...
so it'd be worthwhile getting in touch with them to see if they've kept it up -- you probably haven't thought to check them out in ACEsConnection yet, but ....
so, all up, maybe a small network could be set up soon
btw -- Colette says she's aware of ACEsConnection, but clearly doesn't get obsessive with following it up.
Slowly, ever so slowly, New Zealand IS getting up to speed. We just need "you youngsters", still working in the sector, to maintain the "rage" :-D