Le Va highlights Pacific‑led solutions at Addiction Leadership Day 2025

At this year’s Addiction Leadership Day in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Le Va staff highlighted the need for Pacific‑led solutions, noting that current services are often reactive and crisis‑oriented, and can lack culturally grounded healing.

Mark Esekielu – Le Va senior manager mental health and addiction –  and Nicholas Cao – Le Va clinical lead – gave an overview of Le Va and its initiatives that support the addiction workforce and leadership pipeline.

Le Va clinical lead Nicholas Cao shares his insights

These include Le Va’s Futures That Work scholarship programme, the Addiction and Problem Gambling Harm scholarships, and the Le Tautua leadership programme – all designed to grow capability, capacity and future leaders in the sector.

The pair shared insights from the mental health and addiction stream at Le Va’s Global Pacific Solutions conference, highlighting that in responding to addiction and mental health challenges, we can draw on ancestral intelligence and ancient cultural practices for healing and support.

Future models of care, they said, should be designed by Pacific people – rooted in kinship, culture, spirituality and healing traditions – while being strengths‑based, creative and digitally fluent to meet the needs of future generations.

Organised by the National Committee for Addiction Treatment (NCAT), with secretariat support from Te Pou, there are three Addiction Leadership Days each year.

These one-day events provide an opportunity to deepen professional networks, as well as share sector updates and research, while strengthening and developing leadership.

The day also featured national leaders, including Phil Grady (Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora), who outlined a programme of work to improve system performance, integrate services and strengthen the mental health and addiction workforce.

Dr Bonnie Robinson of The Salvation Army presented social statistics linking housing, poverty and family violence to addiction harm, while Cory James and Cera James (Tuhiata Mahiora) explored the importance of mana motuhake (self‑determination) in client‑led care.

The event brought together practitioners, sector leaders, decision makers and lived experience voices to share strategies, innovations and a vision for a more equitable, culturally grounded addiction sector.

Learn more about Le Va’s work in the mental health and addiction sector: Mental health and addiction.