FLO Community Fund keeps on giving in Wellington & Christchurch

Blog: General News

From Pasifika young people to our Matua, the FLO suicide prevention community fund keeps on giving. In 2014 Le Va delivered $475,000 to Pasifika communities to lead Pasifika solutions to suicide prevention – focussed on enhancing protective factors and reducing the risk factors for suicide, unique for Maori and Pasifika people and their families. As part of the Waka Hourua $2million one-off contestable fund, Le Va has supported 17 organisations or groups, and Te Rau Matatini supported 47 over the last 2 years. The overall aim of the Waka Hourua fund was to support Māori whānau, hapū, iwi, Pasifika families and communities to develop and enhance their own capacity and capability to prevent suicide and to respond safely and effectively when and if suicide occurs.

An initiative in Christchurch and one in the Wellington region did not manage to fully deliver their projects, so we’ve had amazing support from leading locals who have been successful in their community initiatives, to follow through. Approved by our CEO and in consultation with the Ministry of Health, Te Rau Matatini and the Waka Hourua Leadership Group, these projects aim to make a measureable difference for Pasifika suicide prevention.

In Christchurch, separate Pasifika Matua and youth fono have already been facilitated with good outcomes, enhancing knowledge of how to prevent suicide and supporting community mobilisation. Fono bringing the elders and young people together will now be facilitated to support intergenerational communication and understanding around risk and resilience, as well as community connectedness – living and breathing Le Va’s Top5Tactics! The project team is a great collaboration between Matua and youth representatives, Pacific mental health clinicians, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, PYLAT, Pegasus Health, Canterbury district health board, and Community and Public Health. Le Va will there to support! Keep an eye out on our Facebook page or sign up for our newsletter for fono details in November.

In Wellington, we are pleased to support Vaka Tautua to further deliver their successful suicide prevention workshop for Samoan elders, delivered in the Samoan language. Having piloted with over 80 people, developed training resources and 6 video’s, and trained 5 skilled facilitators, we’ve seen some great stories of change. Evaluations show that our Samoan elders report improved communication within their families, that they felt better equipped to comfortably raise and discuss the tough issues in life with their young people and each other, such as suicide, and that the programme had proven to have wider benefits in growing family resilience in dealing with many different family issues. Vaka Tautua have stepped up and will deliver a further 4 workshops in the Wellington/Porirua region. With the leftover funds totalling $5,000, we would like to acknowledge thank Vaka Tautua for their own financial contribution to this initiative which is expected to reach over 60 Matua and their families. For a sneak peak of one the training video’s checkout our YouTube channel here.

Both Le Va and Te Rau Matatini have been carefully monitoring and supporting the initiatives so that we can measure outcomes and identify what works to prevent suicide in our communities. Most of the community initiatives focussed their solutions around Le Va’s Top5Tactics for preventing suicide, and most of the groups required clinical support and safety upskilling from Le Va. We are looking forward to sharing overall results in the near future.