Community engagement

Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities is a New Zealand Crown Entity established to provide tenancy services to nearly 200,000 customers and their whānau and owns and maintains nearly 69,000 public houses. Kāinga Ora focuses on prioritising tenants’ wellbeing, and providing tenants with good quality, warm, dry and healthy homes. 

Te Rā Nui, Eastern Porirua Development is a partnership between Kāinga Ora, Porirua City Council and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. Working in collaboration with Te Pae Whakahou Hapori (the community board established to hold the vision for this project) and community, these organisations are the guardians of an investment that will see Porirua become an even better place to live, work and play for the people of Porirua. Over the next 20 years, Te Rā Nui will see improvements to the total wellbeing of the area. From providing opportunities to build more warm, dry homes, to improving transport, services and facilities, as well as enhancing the local environment for existing and future generations to enjoy. 

For more information about how Kāinga Ora are using community engagement, see our case study.

Kāinga Ora: Working with the community to create the future for eastern Porirua

Getting a driver licence opens the door to many opportunities including jobs, education, family support and healthcare in a small country like New Zealand, but a Ministry of Transport review showed that access to driver licensing is more difficult for around 10% of New Zealanders.  

As part of Budget 2022, the government had announced $86.5 million in funding, to support 64,000 more people to get driver licenses. With that funding, the Driver Licensing Improvement Programme (DLIP) was able to be set up by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) to address the challenges revealed in the review. The programme is a cross-government and community organisations partnership involving six agencies: NZTA, Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand Police, Te Puni Kōkiri, Ministry of Transport and ACC.

The DLIP supports communities with low licence rates who experience significant impacts from not having a licence. They include people unable to obtain employment without a driver licence, people eligible for a benefit, people living rurally, people at risk of, or currently within, the justice system, disabled people and recent migrants. Barriers such as the cost, distance to testing sites and lack of learner support have been addressed through funding 15,000 driver licence places per year with community providers and creating a new Community Driver Testing Officer (CDTO) role. CDTOs provide practical driver testing for the community providers’ students with flexible test times in a familiar location.

The DLIP initiative has opened doors to many opportunities that a driver licence provides including employment, education, support for whānau and healthcare, and enabling more people to become safe licenced drivers.  

Waka Kotahi has engaged with communities on driver licencing around the country. For example the Rotorua iwi Māori service provider, Maatua Whāngai, provides marae-based social service in the heart of Rotorua and plays a crucial role in supporting the community, including the homeless, whanau ora, mental health services, Corrections and other government agencies. Maatua Whāngai, drew on the experience and expertise from the Waka Kotahi Regional Advisor and Safer Driver Education Advisor to provide support for running learner licence training and learn how to eventually expand into restricted and full licence support.

For more information about the DLIP and community engagement, visit the Waka Kotahi website.

Improving the driver licensing system – NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi

Winner of Te Tohu mō ngā Hua E Pai Ake Ana | Better Outcomes Award at the 2024 Te Hāpai Hapori | Spirit of Service Awards.

An underground explosion at the Pike River Mine on 19 November 2010 was a catastrophe for a small West Coast community and New Zealand’s worst mining disaster since 1914. While two men managed to escape, 29 men working in the mine did not survive. Following a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the disaster, in 2018 the Pike River Recovery Agency was formed, to work with the families of the victims, plan and facilitate re-entry of the mine and to gather evidence, to prevent future such mining accidents, provide closure and, if possible, recover the miners’ bodies.  

The Stand with Pike Family Reference Group (FRG) shared their perspectives with government, as survivors of the Pike River mining disasters, proposing that their experience could improve the way that the public service engages with future disaster survivors. This initiative led to the FRG working in partnership with the Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission to co-design the Working with Survivors Model Standards. 

The model standards set out expectations for how government will work with those affected by significant disasters. They aim to ensure that the services available across government are marshalled for survivors of large-scale catastrophic events so that they receive all the support and help they are entitled to in a way that meets their cultural and personal needs. Extensive consultation was undertaken in co-designing the standards. The process involved the Commission in engaging with government agencies while the FRG engaged with the survivors of many of New Zealand’s past, large-scale catastrophic events, including the Aramoana massacre and the Whakaari | White Island eruption. The co-design process enabled survivors to engage with government on their own terms and ensured that their voices were central to the standards.  

The model standards capture, through video clips, the voices of the survivors and the importance of the model standards. These are the first ever model standards issued by the Public Service Commissioner under the Public Service Act 2020 which utilise all five levels of engagement of the Policy Community Engagement Tool (PCET) developed by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Policy Project. The FRG has affirmed that the co-design method has enabled survivors’ voices to be heard and included, alongside agencies. Due to the novel, co-design, approach to developing the model standards, the lessons learned from working together have since been captured.

For futher information including video clips on the key elements of the standards visit our Working With Survivors page.

Working With Survivors – Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission

Rongoā Māori is the traditional healing system in te ao Māori that provides holistic healing. The practice is deeply connected to the natural environment and is considered central to Māori identity. It includes, but isn’t limited to, the use of plant-based remedies, bodywork (like mirimiri and romiromi), whitiwhiti, kōrero and karakia.  It is passed down through generations. 

Rongoā has always existed but was made illegal for much of the 20th century under the Tohunga Suppression Act (repealed in 1962).  This changed following a finding in 2011, by the Waitangi Tribunal, that New Zealand’s health system had a responsibility to support the use of rongoā Māori, as an important tool for improving Māori wellbeing.  Fortunately, a small number of practitioners  continued their work,  enabling the practice to be passed down. 

In 2019, a field survey by ACC found that 80% of Māori respondents considered it important that their health provider offer rongoā Māori services.   ACC responded to this call from the community, recognising the need to offer more options to whānau who had experienced injury.  

In 2020, ACC made rongoā Māori accessible as a form of social rehabilitation for kiritaki (clients). 

This  work has involved developing guidance for funding rongoā Māori within the existing legislative criteria and building strategic partnerships directly with rongoā practitioners and with the Ministry of Health in order to recognise and support the service.  Over 12,600 kiritaki (clients) and whānau have accessed rongoā Māori through ACC since the service began.  

For more information, visit ACC's website.

Rongoā Māori services – ACC

ACC's rongoā Māori service was the winner of the Whai Ratonga Māori Crown Award at the 2024 Te Hāpai Hapori | Spirit of Service Awards. 

Love Better is a primary prevention campaign by Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora | Ministry of Social Development (MSD) that aims to foster safe and positive romantic and sexual relationships amongst young people aged 16-24 years.  

MSD’s research showed that 68% of young people involved in breakups had a bad experience beyond the ‘normal’ hurt of breaking up. Bad experiences, of emotional hurt leading to harm, included self-harm, depression, substance abuse, risky sexual behaviours, blackmail, excessive jealousy, revenge, possessiveness, and stalking.

The Love Better campaign was developed from an evidence base and took a radical new approach to change harmful discourse and behaviour around relationships that affect young people.  The campaign concept, ‘Own the Feels’, asked young people to acknowledge, or own, their emotional pain and to channel it into something positive for themselves.  The concept involved normalising or removing the stigma attached to asking for help.  The campaign focused on building the skills and knowledge that young people need to safely navigate break-ups, whilst creating a peer-to-peer community to learn from and inspire each other.

The ‘Own The Feels’ phase of the campaign had over 450 pieces of content created by more than 77 authors.  It included podcasts, written articles, TikToks, videos with musicians, radio spots, TV-on-demand and out-of-home content. The content was a huge success, garnering over 26,500,000 engagements (likes, comments, views, listens, shares), and reaching 95% of the available audience of 16-24 year olds across all platforms. It is a great example of modern engagement and collaboration and the use of technology to reach its target audience.

With over 113 million impressions and 26.5 million engagements received for Phase One, the campaign created a shift in young people’s knowledge and attitudes, with 75% saying they would seek help if they needed it (up 15%) and 80% saying they now know where to go for additional support (up 20%).  

For more information about the Love Better campaign, see MSD's website.

Youth Campaign Love Better – Ministry of Social Development

 Love Better was the winner of Te Tohu Auaha Hou | Innovation Award at the 2024 Te Hāpai Hapori | Spirit of Service Awards.