Panel Session: Suicide In Communities
TRANSCRIPT
How to discuss and address suicide and related mental health issues safely and in wider community settings such as: schools and small communities where there have been a series of deaths, media, work and extended families.
FEATURING:
Materoa Mar (Board Chair, Mental Health Foundation)
Andre Konia (Kia Piki Te Ora, Te Waipounamu)
Gael Woods (Deputy Head Of News, Radio New Zealand)
Gordon Matenga (Acting Chief Coroner, Coronial Services New Zealand)
Michael Naera (Kia Piki Te Ora, Te Runanga o Ngati Pikiao
Nikki Coleman (Clinical Advisor, Postvention, CASA)
Shelley Dean (Practice Advisor, Ministry of Education)
Materoa Mar: My background is that I’ve been in health for about thirty years now. I, currently in my day job, work for an organisation in primary health called Compass Health as the Director of Maori Health, but I also do these other things in terms of the Mental Health Foundation and Te Rau Matatini.
I live in Palmerston North, and have lived there for a very long time, and I have five children – I always hesitate when I say children because, you know, three of them are adults, and I’m not sure that they quite like being described as children anymore, but they’re always your children, so, hmm. And I have seven mokupuna.
Just in terms of reflecting on this really important kaupapa, my thoughts go to all whanau and all people who’ve been touched by the issue of suicide, and I know that in my own life, just on Friday, we buried one of our boys, eighteen, and so that feels very pouri and so my thoughts turn to them at this time as well.
So it is a privilege and an honour to be a part of the discussions that will take place here this afternoon, and that have taken place already.
We are all in privileged positions in terms of the influence that we have, no matter what our role is, no matter what we contribute. And I think as much as our past and our whakapapa, or our genealogy, or our history, however you want to frame that, helps to define who we are, we also control and contribute and define the future by being a part of creating whakapapa, genealogy, history going forward.
So although there are those issue that need to be addressed, healing undertaken because of intergenerational issues, there also is a pathway forward, and we all, in front of us, have the ability to participate in that pathway forward.
We all have hope, we all have courage, and we all have the strength, and the skills, and the wisdom to contribute to something that is dynamic, and is able to provide healing and that pathway forward.
I really want to mention, and also hope that people think about whanau ora. I think that whanau ora has a lot to offer to this kaupapa of how we move forward.
Nikki Coleman: Kia ora koutou, I’m Nikki Coleman. We work with communities after there’s been a suicide cluster or concerns about contagion. I’m from Hawke’s Bay, but I live in wobbly old Christchurch at the moment. But I’ve had the privilege of working across the country in this role, and more recently in Kawerau, so I’d really like to acknowledge the Kawerau group down here, and what you’ve done so far today, but also too... I’ve been in the scenes in the background in Kawerau and I think there’s been some magic happen there and it’s going to keep happening.
We’ve kind of taken a safe line how to talk about suicide, it’s like, you know, do no harm, we don’t want to increase risk. And I think we’ve kind of got to a place now where we need to talk about it more, and we need to talk about it and decide how we talk about it, with whom we talk about it, and when we talk about it. And I think there’s some really key kind of points in there that it’s... you know, we’ve talked today about impulsivity, and often suicide gets talked about impulsively in the media, or actions get kind of determined in communities about when and how to talk about suicide, and I think especially in my experience of working with communities after several suicides have occurred and keep occurring, there’s definitely a time and a place to do it.
But, you know, I sit as a vlinician, predominantly, and I do see that... you know, I was just talking to a young person yesterday who’s had a suicide in his school, and I was just plugging away a little bit about what his need was to talk about suicide, what his peers were, and there was such difference for him, and for his peers, and for the rest of the school, and for the community, and it just highlighted for me that we need to talk about it, and put it out there, but continue to do it safely.
Gael Woods: Kia ora tatou. I’m Gael Woods, I’m from Radio New Zealand. It’s quite strange to come to a conference and not be reporting on it, but to be a part of it, so I’m sort of out of my comfort zone in someways.
I’ve been a Journalist for more than thirty years, and a lot of that time as a Reporter, and during those years I was often humbled by the fact that people would tell me about their lives, often when they were in various extremes of the human condition. And it is quite humbling to be on the receiving end of, and you want to do justice to someone’s story.
I’ve felt like that somewhat, here today, especially when you hear from and about people for whom that dark 3am of the soul is something that doesn’t always ease at the break of day.
I’m here for Radio New Zealand, I’m not here to represent the media, but I am of the media. I’ve also been part of the working party preparing guidelines for the reporting of suicide for the Ministerial Committee on Suicide Prevention, which has been a very interesting exercise, and has actually turned up a lot of... the fact that not everyone in the media actually agrees with how suicide should be reported on.
A lot of the times I think we’re actually also in the dark; we are quite restricted on what we can say, in terms of just reporting individual suicides, by the Coroner’s Act. The Chief Coroner, Judge MacLean, has talked about opening the door a little, and Peter Dunn referred to that this morning. It has meant that media has spoken to the various agencies involved in suicide prevention in an open sort of way, but I think actually the move will have to come from the Coroners in what they decide will be reported.
Our editorial policies – I’m actually responsible, I’m the Editorial Policy Manager as well as the Deputy Head of News, Radio New Zealand, and so I largely get to decide... well, it comes to me, what and how something can be reported on. And it was very interesting when the Coroner, earlier this year, in Palmerston North, released details... a lot of details about a young woman’s suicide, and that was covered on the front page of the Dominion Post, and actually attracted a lot of flack. So how to... how we report on suicides in a way that hopefully, obviously, helps to reduce the rate of suicide in New Zealand is something that I’m not sure how that’s going to happen, but I think it’s very important that that dialogue has begun, and probably in a more meaningful way, but I think there is quite a long way to go.
Shelley Dean: My name is Shelley Dean, I’m an Educational Psychologist working for the Ministry of Education Special Education. I grew up in that changed city, Christchurch, and my thoughts go down to all those people in Christchurch, and particularly Lyttelton, which is when you go into Lyttelton now, those old buildings and places which I used to remember don’t exist anymore.
I’ve had various roles over time. I’ve been a teacher, and my role at the moment is a Practice Advisor supporting teens that go into support schools when a crisis happens, or the Traumatic Incident Service.
It’s a service which is kind of... I don’t think it’s actually that well known; it’s developed over probably the last twenty years, and we go in and support schools after... when something really bad happens, usually, and those are those things that happen like sudden death, suicide, car accidents and other things that really affect schools. School’s like a big family.
When it was reported last year, the events that have happened in Kings, the Kings College Principal said ‘I liken it to standing in the surf and a big wave knocks you over and you go upside down in the ocean, and you gradually get your footing and then you get oriented. To have a sequence like this is very challenging, and... but you can still see the strength of the community, you can see the heart of the community, and it’s a strong one, and has to keep beating throughout this.’
So our role really is to go in when the waves are rocking that school or early childhood community, and to see where their strength is in that community and move that community forward.
Michael Naera: Kia ora tatou katoa. I’m Michael Naera, and I’m a Kia Piki Te Ora Coordinator, and you’ve probably heard that all day, Kia Piki Te Ora Coordinators. And I’m proud to say that we’re the only Maori suicide prevention group throughout the country, and across nine sites, and there are eighteen of us across those sites. And I’m pretty proud to be a part of Kia Piki Te Ora because it gives us a chance to re-indigenise our people, to say to them that ‘do you really need these services, or can you do that yourself’, ‘can you really get together and look at the korero at your own marae, or at your own sports club, and really analyse, for yourselves, do we really need services to assist us’.
What my main aim is, is to really empower them to think about that. To really think about coming up with their own ways of doing things to prevent suicide in their own communities. And that’s what I’m about. And not to put a downer on the services that we do have, but crikey, leave the whanau alone, let them grieve.
When the suicide happens, they’re grieving, and the thing that really bugs me is that it starts off, the suicide occurs and the police enter their home. I tell you what, if you enter Ruamata Marae where they are coming through the front door, you would get kicked off. Why? Why should we do that with our own whanau? They’re in grief mode, and it goes right from the suicide happening, to going to the funeral directors, and we discriminate against our whanau because they’ve got the label ‘suicide’ on their heads. Let them grieve, let them tangi.
And another thing that we need to do is korero amongst our kaumatua, because the korero is up here and up there. Because when they say ‘you only get one night on the marae’, I challenge that, and I say ‘well does the paedophile get one night on this marae’. ‘Does the Treasurer who ripped off the marae get one night on the marae’.
And I... the work I’ve been in, is that I’ve seen the devastation across whanau when services get involved, and I’m saying bugger off, let them grieve, and let’s come up with a coordinated approach where they say ‘oh, you can come in now, you can come in’, because the power is with our whanau.
So kia ora tatou katoa.
Gordon Matenga: Kia ora. Kia ora. My name’s Gordon Matenga, I’m a coroner based in Hamilton. At present I’m Acting Chief Coroner while the Coroner Judge, Neil MacLean, is on extended leave.
I am here representing an opinion that perhaps there hasn’t been much discussion on so far today. I just wanted to put things a little bit in perspective. Of the five thousand seven hundred-odd deaths which are referred to Coroners in New Zealand a year, a little over five hundred and forty of them will be suicides.
In the year from 1st July 2010 to the 1st June 2011 there were five hundred and fifty-eight suicides in this country. Now even taking into account that the road statistics are based on a calendar year, in 2010 there were three hundred and seventy-five road deaths, yet in the same, similar period, the 2010 figures were five hundred and forty-one suicides. That this is a big problem; it’s killing our people.
One other thing which may give you a little bit more of an insight – the highest total rate of suicides for 2010-2011 occurred in the twenty to twenty-four age group. For women, the highest age group range was the fifty to fifty-four age group – now that may come as a surprise. And for men, it’s that twenty to twenty-four age group.
Now one of the things which coroners can do, we are not experts on suicide, but one of our principle roles is to identify trends, patterns, provide that information to a community and to government, and to look for ways in which suicide can be prevented.
I was interested to listen to the discussion about social media, and the push from panellists to, you know, get out there, get talking, talk about it, but just keep in mind that actually in this country you can’t at present. If a death is an apparent suicide, or appears to be a suicide, the Coroners Act prohibits the publication of any detail relating to the suicide without the Coroners approval.
And then once the Coroner has concluded his or her enquiry, Section 74 of the Coroners Act prohibits any publication other than the name of the deceased and the fact that it was a suicide.
I have the feeling that the general feeling of those here in the room today is that we should discuss it, we should talk about it more, and I do agree with the stance taken by the Chief Coroner that perhaps it’s time to open the door a little more, but how far is far enough. When do we go too far.
There is still a very big... a very large portion of the community which espouses the view that we shouldn’t talk about it at all because of the risk of copycats. Only a few days ago I received a letter, in my role as Acting Chief, which purports to be a complaint about a Coroner who has, in that Doctor’s view, said too much, released too much information. And the basis of that Doctor’s view is the risk of copycats.
So I throw that out there. I’m here to represent the Coroners, and hopefully not to put a dampener on discussion, but to encourage it, because I would be very interested to go from this hui today understanding what the feeling of the... at least this part of the community is.
So kiaorano.
Andre Konia: I’m one of those other indigenous foot soldiers like my friend over here, a Kia Piki Te Ora Coordinator for Waitaha, or the Greater Canterbury region. These are the people that I represent, or I like to try my best in my endeavours to do my best as a... as one of the Kia Piki Te Ora Coordinators. And my particular korero today would be around the... our physical landscape has changed, and we deal with this being able to reconnect and getting connectedness within our whanau and our hapu, even though we may be physically dislocated.
I’ve had many roles in my very short working career. I’ve worked in youth work, I had the privilege of teaching in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, so nga mihi nui Kawerau. I actually worked in Kawerau as well, at Tasman, Matata, Whakatane. Teaching was my first love, health promotion was probably my second, and now I’m a Kia Piki Coordinator.
These particular sort of roles have kind of opened my eyes to some of the greater social determinants that our whanau and our hapu are really missing out on. And it’s being able to sort of find ways where we can influence the built environment, and influence those that are making those big decisions, not to forget about us.
Materoa Mar: I know that there are a lot of questions out here in... amongst everybody. And so I’m actually not surprised. I’m not going to ask any questions of the panel, I’m actually going to go straight to asking people if they would like to ask their questions, and we will run that session in that way.
Audience Member: Yes, well I work for Depression Support Network in Canterbury. A growth industry down there at the moment, but if you want to buy a house there’s lots of open-plan living, and plenty of new water features.
I’d really like to acknowledge the Coroner’s comments on reporting on suicide, because that’s something that’s a real stickler for my job working with people with depression.
Legally you can’t discuss suicide, but nearly everybody that comes to use us at Depression Support Network in Christchurch wants to talk about suicidal thinking.
How can we normalise that in a culture, and there’s a roomful of people here that are starting that journey, but the amount of people that want to talk about the thinking as part of their depression or their bipolar is massive. And just the calming when someone can sit down and talk openly about that their thinking of suicide, the impact it has on them to be heard is really, really empowering.
And my question to the panel would be how do we bring in the professionals – the Psychologists, the academics – to actually acknowledge that you take your car to a mechanic to get fixed, you don’t take it to a butcher shop. So to think about suicide, who is the best person for that, and for that individual.
Gordon Matenga: What the Coroners Act says you are not able to do is you can’t publish. It is a prohibition from publication of particulars of a particular suicide. It doesn’t prohibit a discussion of suicide in a general sense.
Shelley Dean: When there’s a sudden death or an accident that affects a school, our service recognises the importance of communication in that setting, so that’s communication to the family, communication to students and classes, and communication to parents. And we work on the first premise of safety, I guess, around that, and safety... and that’s a message that’s come through with... to me, about social media and how people are talking about the events that are affecting their lives.
We go in to promote safety in a school setting, and the first thing that we do is try to clarify with young people, and with the police and other services, about what has actually happened, because young people’s ability to communicate across different settings can create a whole lot of different scenarios, so our first job is, when we go into a school, is to support that school to communicate about what actually has happened, and what we can release about that, and then to start talking with the family about what information they want released and how they want that communicated safely within the school.
And we also support teachers to talk with young people after an event like that, as soon as possible really, and we support that via scripts, factual scripts about what has occurred, and then invite some discussion in classroom settings with the teachers who are familiar pupils, and with their classmates, about what information they have, and ask them for opportunities to clarify... well it’s an opportunity for them to clarify and ask about things that they actually need to know in that setting.
Michael Naera: In terms of intervention in that... and I’m presuming that’s what you’re talking about... is that we need to really look at how we build the critical mass within the community. When someone comes to see them, and they have suicidal ideations, they know how to work with it.
At the moment many of our whanau in the community are diving under the table out of fear. When someone comes and says ‘I want to take my life’, oh I’ll go talk to that fellow down the road’. Now the strategy here is that we need to get in and talk to our whanau. When someone comes, you have the tools, remember your kuia when someone was down, you’re going ‘oh, something’s wrong with their mokopuna’ and then you go over and have a korero.
And the whakatauki today is ... talk about what’s happening with your mokopuna. And my colleague... my colleague says how many of us have spoken to our six year old lately? How many of us have gone to the marae and ran a rangatahi day with them? So we need to take a mirror and put the mirror in front of us. Rather than trying to fix everyone else up, look over the fence, we need to take a look back.
And the one thing I like about Norman’s whakapapa is that there’s suicides from previous whanau – that’s occurring in Maori families, and we need to take a look at our own health, our own families.
Audience Member: My question is, can you help us awhi our whanau when we send them away to boarding school?
Shelley Dean: When not so good things happen in schools that have... that are boarding schools, our services and outside service that comes in to support that school and that boarding establishment. We come in by invite. The schools are run independent, and they’re run by their Board of Trustees, so sometimes we cannot be invited in, and... but we do our best to work alongside that... the leadership of that school.
And when we work along the leadership of that school in terms of their communication and the work that we do in there, we also support what that school does culturally, so we support them to draw in community leaders and whoever they need in there to support the young people as well. And it depends on the particular circumstances of what’s happened in that college as to where the care for young people should come from – should their care be coming from teachers, or should it be coming from whanau, and what that would actually look like.
Audience Member: The real question I wanted to... the real thing I wanted to say is like postvention, to me, there needs to be a much greater focus on postvention as opposed to prevention, but that’s got to start with our whanau. Because if we don’t talk about suicide like we’re doing today, like this... talking about suicide starts at the friggin’ tangi, you know. I watched my Aunty stand up and talk in detail about what her daughter had done, so when it came to my turn I did the same. We need to do that, that’s how come we get situations like Wairarapa, where stories evolve.
So, what’s my question? How do we change this focus to postvention, as opposed to prevention? I don’t know whether that makes sense, but that’s kind of where I think we might... the tide needs to kind of change.
Michael Naera: But have you ever looked at whanau ora pathways for us? Iwi ora pathways? Why do we have to rely on those structures where they put us into boxes? Why don’t whanau... why don’t whanau come together and design their own structures? Why don’t they come before the Coroner and stand up and say ‘yes, we were affected when you held the body for four days’, ‘we were affected when the pathologist wasn’t available and we had to travel down Wellington’, eh?
So... so that’s what I was talking about is that the whanau are the key. The whanau are the key. The thing about you being whanau and me being in this role is that I know the ins and outs about the system, and I think I have a role to impart that on you guys to say this is what the Coroner’s role is.
So... so empowering whanau; that’s what Kia Piki’s about.
Gael Woods: We talked about dealing with newspapers, dealing with the media, and you talk about all the speculation and the rumours and that sort of thing. And for news organisations that’s an issue as well - the whole sort of social media does impact on the work that we do, because we’re following Twitter and Facebook and that sort of thing, looking for news tips, looking for stuff that’s just out there. Some of those... some of that stuff does make it into some media.
At Radio New Zealand, we would never put anything on the radio if it hadn’t been thoroughly checked out. But one of the things that came up earlier, and I think it was Barry Taylor, was it, from the Wairarapa DHB, when... and I thought then, as far as agencies are concerned, they have to really front-foot a lot of these stories, because that’s when the rumours get out there, and then you’ve got reporters going ‘well what am I going to say about this’, ‘oh it’s saying this on Facebook’ or, you know, ‘someone’s Tweeting this, this was a suicide, this was a suicide pact’ or whatever, and that’s when you get a lot of that misinformation – and what I imagine would be quite damaging information for the families. And I do think it’s very important for the agencies to be getting out there, being really proactive about getting out the right information.
Nikki Coleman: And I’d say from a postvention... you know, for a... in a community that when a group comes together it’s quickly identified who is the media spokesperson, and that they are the ones who speak with the media, and that if other people are contacted that they go through the media spokesperson just to keep consistency so that there isn’t incorrect information being spread out.
It’s also very stressful being contacted by the media when you’re in the eye of the storm of managing postevention, so really useful too that the person who is the media spokesperson is the spokesperson for the community, that they have briefed by the community, and permission given by the community about what they say, but that they’re supported in doing that because it’s a very difficult role.
Michael Naera: The media has the responsibility to report Maori needs effectively, and not to say that Police 10 is the Maori media, ok. We need to report it effectively. And this is a challenge to the media, is that controversy is always out there with the media, and unfortunately Maori... Maori sell papers, Maori sell headlines and all that.
Audience Member: My name is Sean McNeill, I’m Scottish as you can tell by accent, but I am now an adopted Kiwi, and I work for Welllink Trust in Wellington.
In Victorian times, or a hundred years ago, we didn’t talk about sex, there was a huge explosion of sexually transmitted infections – serious enough that a lot of people died because of it. What we’re doing is we’re repeating history, we’re supposed to learn from history.
We are here today to talk about suicide. The question is how do we talk about suicide, it’s not should we or shouldn’t we. We should.
I have not seen any convincing evidence that if you talk about suicide in a community, in a responsible and supported way, that it causes copycats. None whatsoever. So I don’t know what the political agenda is about the Coroners dragging their heels on this.
So we really need to get together – we need to get together on our maraes, we need to get together in our community groups, what is... whatever it is. We need to talk about this subject, we need to be supported when we’re talking about it, and we need to get people trained in ASSIST, and if anybody hasn’t heard what ASSIST is, then get people trained in it.
In Scotland there’s fifty thousand people in the community now that’s trained in ASSIST which is Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training. It means that there’s fifty thousand people in the community that you can go to that know exactly what to do in a crisis and can help. There’s no reason that we can’t do that in New Zealand, and that’s the commitment we need from Peter Dunn. He’s going to fund some training so we can get people in the communities trained. The whanau can be trained, and we can all be supported and get these conversations going.
Gordon Matenga: Yeah, I’m not sure there... I’m not sure there’s a question in that. But can I ask you this – perhaps you can help clear this up for me, because I’m not quite clear. What are you suggesting as far as talking about suicide? Are you suggesting that we do this, which is what we’re doing, we are talking about suicide. Or are you suggesting that there should be a discussion about the way in which each person has chosen to commit suicide? And that is... that’s the only thing which is, at present, prohibited from publication.
Audience Member: There is research which proves if you publish the methods in which people commit suicide then that is detrimental, so you don’t publish the methods. But there’s no reason not to say that such and such a person has died by suicide, it’s tragic, this is the support that is available, and if anybody’s experiencing these issues, this is the supports available. You just don’t publish... you don’t publish the methods.
Gordon Matenga: All of which is allowable, at present, under the current law. So why aren’t we talking about it? We do get the blame for a lot of this, and it’s ‘the Coroner’s this... Coroner’s that...’. But the... but... but it’s actual... but in actual fact people misunderstand completely what the law says. And I’m not entirely sure that there needs to be any change at present. What is it about the current law which does not allow us to talk about suicide, apart from changing social attitudes?
Gael Woods: I just think... while I’m not here to represent the media, I do... I understand the points of view of the people who want some of the laws changed to do with the reporting of suicide. And while Judge Matenga obviously knows the Coroners Act, we can really only report what a Coroner allows us to report. We can report the fact that, as he said, that... someone’s name and the fact that they’ve committed suicide. That’s it, if the Coroner decides that no more ‘particulars’ should be released.
Now the issue for some people is that... some people in the media is that you might get an incidence where there’s been an obvious... perhaps an obvious suicide, and it’s... and the media aren’t allowed to say that it’s a suicide, even if someone died in front of a whole lot of... killed themselves in front of a whole lot of people, you’d have to say well it was a... you wouldn’t even be allowed to say it was an apparent suicide, you’d say something like ‘there were no suspicious circumstances’ or something. And some people think that that is just carrying euphemism just too far.
Now there’s another side that says well why should it be up to the media to decide who... you know, whether someone has died by suicide. Is it... even to say an apparent suicide, if that person didn’t die by an apparent suicide and it was some sort of misadventure, why would it be up then to the media to say that, and to put that out there.
So it’s very conflicting, and I think that there is possibly room to move, which is why I imagine the Chief Coroner has talked about this opening the door, because I... there’s still a lot of... the media do report on the issue of suicide – in fact Radio New Zealand had a documentary about it just a couple of weeks ago - and we do report on issues to do with suicide, but it is just that that is seen as a stumbling block, so that if there is an incident you can’t report on that before it goes to the Coroner.
I mean there was the incident the other day where one of the papers talked about the situation in Masterton – erroneously, as it turned out – but where you have a public meeting that’s going to be held in a town to discuss suicide and the fact that some young people appear to have died by suicide, that becomes a story, and... but then you’re actually running into some conflict in terms, I think, of the Coroners Act. So it does put the media in a difficult position, because that is an issue of public interest, a whole town has perhaps come together and wants to discuss that, and yet the media aren’t really able, by law, to say that these young people, or whatever, have... whoever’s involved, has died by suicide.
So, you know, the guidelines that are being worked on at the moment haven’t been completed... completely signed-off, I suppose, yet. It’s, as I say, it’s good to have the agencies all talking to the media, but in the end I think it does come down to the Coroners, because some Coroners will release a lot of information, and some won’t, and there is seen to be an inconsistency in the way that some of the Coroners operate.
Audience Member: How can you not push consumers into trying to do things on their own, because I feel that the only people that really can understand are people that have been there, and yet you’ve got expertise as clinician and people who are providing services, but there seems to me that there’s a really big gap between it. And the whanau ora stuff is interesting to me because basically from a Maori perspective that’s taking that journey back, but how can consumers take that journey back but in a way that can work alongside clinicians who have some expertise.
Materoa Mar: Ok. So really the question is around peer support, and being able to work in that way, right?
Michael Naera: I say all power to you. Maori... Maori need to look at how they support their people. Consumers need to find out how they support their people - gay and lesbian and all that - and develop their own strategies. And how we introduce services in to come and support you.
Audience Member: How can you support us Pacific people that live in isolated areas, for our youth that come over here for schooling, English is our second language, New Zealand born, they are looking, or seeking for their personal identity. That’s where we can become clients to the addiction services like AOD, and other services out there, gambling and others, to sort of replace that.
My background, I work as a Mental Health Support worker. Not only that, I’m also a single parent. All my kids are New Zealand born, while I was born and brought up in the village. So I’m just here. There are services out there, but we don’t really know where or when to go and get the services until we present ourselves when we are in acute stages.
Would there be support to upskill us Pasifika people to train, so culturally and clinically should work together?
Michael Naera: There certainly is support, and you’ve heard from the ASSIST programme that’s out there. They can support you in training the Pacific Island community. For Maori, there’s the Te Whakauruora training, that Te Rau Matatini, and so watch this space for that. And there’s also the Anamata training that they’ve rolled out in Tuhoe.
Audience Member: I’m from Palmerston North. We have a hapu that do not allow individuals that have died by their own hand to lie amongst their ancestors and whanaunga. I am interested in the panels’ thoughts as to how this sensitive issue can be discussed within these hapu and hapuri.
Michael Naera: It needs to be discussed in your own forums, and it doesn’t have to be on the marae, it can be anywhere where you want to talk about it. And in terms of tikanga and that, kaumatua need to be informed. Kaumatua and kuia need to be informed. Rangatahi need to have the opportunity to speak as well, and wahine as well. They need to talk over there, because we’re... Mapihi and I – we’re working in one of our hapu at the moment, and they ran a hui at the marae, and the rangatahi were in the wharenui and they said ‘oh, this isn’t our domain, this is for karauwa’ because we’ve always seen them talk about it, you know, seen them in their domain. And we’re too fearful to speak in there.
So, what am I saying, is that, yeah, go back to your marae, talk about it, put the issue out, because that’s the korero up there. And our tupuna always spoke about things that went around and around for four days, why are we disregarding that, why don’t we go back to those traditional times?
Andre Konia: The real underlying korero there is around the communication that starts in the whanau and at the marae as well around the... what the definition of some of the kaumatua in your rohi understand the definition, or their tikanga there. I think if you look really close at him, if you look far back, that may have actually been an adopted... an adopted piece of tikanga from somewhere else.
Now what that means then is that there... like my counterpart had said, that the korero has to begin. Because I think Michael brought up a good point – that there are all of these different kinds of slight amendments to the way that different marae and hapu around the country conduct that whole tangihana process, and how some particular marae won’t let them stay in the... on the marae and stuff like that.
And he brought up a good point about criminal activity, about, you know, whether paedophiles actually stay on the marae as well, you know, this is a korero that goes around that particular sort of pathway, that it’s not about how that... how the life was ended, it’s about celebrating the life itself. And that’s a korero that some of our whanaus need to have before we take it up to a greater forum within our marae, because our whanau are... really are pillars of our community, and if those pillars aren’t strong then there goes the wero.
Materoa Mar: The conversation has begun, and there’s more opportunity to have that dialogue – it isn’t about just having that while you’re here, but it is the opportunity to take those discussions back to where you come from, to your workplace, to your families, to your communities, and to continue that dialogue.
I think that there are some misconceptions that perhaps some of the panel members did clarify today around some of the issues to do with talking about suicide. And we’re certainly grateful for the wisdom that all of the panel members brought today, and for the time that they’ve given to come and discuss those things with us.
So if we could just take a moment to thank them, and I thank you very much as an audience. Kia ora.
