Our services are available to whānau from a diverse range of backgrounds, aimed to restore their well-being and enhance their social resiliency.
Our kaimahi take a trauma-informed, non-judgemental, strength-based approach to help strengthen relationships between parents/caregivers and their tamariki.
We aim to educate whānau, develop their parenting skills while focusing on improving all challenges and encouraging intergenerational change, including health, children’s growth and development, learning and relationships.
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The Family Start programme offers free, voluntary home visits to support expecting parents and those with pēpi and tamariki (up to 2 years old).
You can self-refer through this website, by email or by calling us. You can also be referred by healthcare or education providers, legal professionals, or community workers.
Family Start empowers whānau to build a strong and positive future for their tamariki. Our focus is on the health, education, safety, and development of your tamaiti.
We achieve this by:
A dedicated Family Start worker will visit you regularly at home, starting with weekly visits. They'll get to know your whānau – you, your partner (if applicable), and your precious tamariki. Together, you'll explore your parenting strengths and identify areas where support might be helpful.
They will also help you get the right health care for your tamaiti, support you to keep your pēpi safe, explain how your pēpi is growing and changing at different ages, and help you work out what you want to achieve, change or improve. Your kaimahi will also make a plan with you to help you get there, offering advice and ideas to help you solve problems.
Read the Family Start brochure for more info.
"Cathy would visit me in my home every week and gave me exercises to help me bond with my baby [...] all of these exercises really helped me connect with my son before he was born"
Expectant parents and parents of newborn and young children qualify for Family Start. If this is you, you can self-refer using our contact form or get your healthcare professional or community worker to refer you.
You can self-refer by calling us or using the contact form on our website. You can also ask your healthcare professional or community worker to refer you directly. We have a downloadable form you can email or print out if you'd like to refer this way too.
Our Family Start programme is free and voluntary, meaning that you can withdraw at any point with zero consequences.
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Dunedin
OCEANS is a Grief and Loss programme that provides an opportunity for people who are missing someone in their lives to share and learn from others in the group who have experienced a similar loss, and experience and learn from the programme activities how to cope with loss and change in their lives.
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