A new look in the New Year

With the festive season just around the corner, the FLO team at Le Va are busy revamping the content and resources in the FLO Talanoa suicide prevention education programme in preparation for the new year with a refreshed focus! 

FLO Talanoa is an information workshop about Pasifika suicide prevention designed to be led by the community for the community. It is a call to action, and aligned with Pasifika values of love, respect and reciprocity.  

To date we’ve trained 106 community facilitators to deliver education workshops within their own communities. In return, they have delivered workshops to 1097 Pasifika people within their networks – across different towns and cities in New Zealand, in different languages, to different groups, and even across borders to extended families in the Pacific islands. 

Pictured: Leilani Clarke with Wellington based FLO Talanoa Facilitators at their recent reconnect meeting. (Left to right: Marie Schmidt, Leilani Clarke, Kaye-Maree Dunn, Rosettastone Iupeli and Te Hiwi Preston).

Content changes are currently underway with a new video now in post-production! 

Participants are informed about the risk factors, protective factors and warning signs of suicide and gain an understanding of how Pasifika cultural beliefs and practices influence one’s wellbeing.

Reconnecting face to face with the facilitators has been a goal for the team over the past few months, targeting Christchurch, Dunedin, Auckland and Wellington. Innovative ways to support the FLO Talanoa Facilitators with their community workshops will be a key focus for Le Va in the new year.

Picture: Saveatama Eroni Clarke featuring in the new video.

A refresh training is set to kick off in mid – January 2018 for the current pool of Le Va trained FLO Talanoa facilitators and plans to roll out the new and improved version of FLO Talanoa in early February. 

A key resource that we will continue to use in the FLO Talanoa workshops is the B.R.A.V.E video that showcases our young people’s call to action in preventing suicide, by asking you to listen to their plea.

For more information about the FLO Talanoa workshops go to: https://www.leva.co.nz/training-education/flo-talanoa or email flo@leva.co.nz to enquire how you can have a workshop delivered in your community.