The satellite seminars were born out of feedback to Le Va in 2016, where people mentioned that they would love to see local/regional seminars as opposed to one large conference. The focus of the GPS seminars was Growing Pasifika Solutions for what the Pasifika mental health and addiction workforce would look like for the next 12-18 months, especially in light of Kia Kaha, Kia Māia, Kia Ora Aotearoa – Psychosocial and mental health wellbeing plan (revised edition December 2020). The purpose was:
The Ministry of Health has invested a significant amount of funding in the primary care sector. GPS wanted to ‘unpack’ what that Pasifika workforce should look like and the range of skills required to deliver the right responses to the mental wellbeing of our Pasifika communities. The talanoa captured from GPS satellites can be summarised in the following:
GPS was honoured and privileged to hear the regional voices with a wide range of representatives from Health Improvement Practitioners (HIPs) to CEs and Consultant Psychiatrists. It was humbling to hear of the work our Pasifika workforce deliver with little or no funding but driven with the values of alofa, reciprocity and tautua to our Pasifika families and communities. The GPS team has collated all the talanoa contributions and will draft a summary report for distribution.
A special acknowledgement needs to go to all the participants that attended the GPs satellite sessions and those that contacted Le Va when they were unable to attend in person. Le Va humbly thanks you all for the gift of your valuable time. It was well spent in the company of many wonderful Pasifika and non-Pasifika people.