Conference Coverage

Te Pare Meihana, National Information Manager at Te Pou, overviews -

He Kakano: Planting the Seeds

The very first Australasian mental health outcomes conference!!

Attended by 302 delegates - from New Zealand and Australia, with international guest, James Healy from the Ohio Mental Health State Department, USA.

"He Kakano was a great barometer for the energy and passion both New Zealand and Australia have for using outcomes information to improve mental health and addiction services." Te Pare Meihana

I have been reflecting on the conference, and it would be fair to say that everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The feedback we have received so far has been overwhelmingly positive. It is hard to pinpoint just one reason for this - delegates have mentioned numerous highlights - but perhaps the X Factor for them, and certainly for me, was that He Kakano brought such a diverse range of people together, all united under the one kaupapa of improving mental health outcomes. This was exciting!

And, because it was an inaugural event, that sets the scene for many conferences to follow, I would also like to make mention of the other highlights in the hope we can grow and improve upon what has already been set in motion:

People enjoyed the range of papers presented - saying there was a real smorgasbord of papers to choose from, and that it was great to see so many examples of how people are already using outcomes information to inform recovery planning and team discussions.

The networking was fantastic - having such a range of people, all with different perspectives together at one time was hugely beneficial.

People really enjoyed the dinner, with superb food and equally good entertainment. Pio Terei was fantastic, mixing humour and waiata to portray messages about the importance of identity and positive approaches to parenting and family living. Te Ihi Connections delivered a show-stopping kapa haka performance and, of course, our very own L Jay had everyone up dancing the night away with her beautiful singing.

The key note speakers were described as provocative, challenging, simulating, powerful and affirming.

Key Themes

The key themes that emerged over the three days, in summary, were:

Diversity - the importance of having all perspectives engaged in understanding the benefits of routine outcome measurement.

Leadership - a critical success factor for the embedding of outcome measurement in mental health services is having leaders who are actively leading and demonstrating support to the change management processes that are required.

Recovery - all development and implementation activity must be connected to the shared goal of supporting the recovery of services users and tangata whaiora.

Less focus on the tools/instruments that are being used and more emphasis on how the information is being collected - through engagement and assessment processes.

Where to from here?

He Kakano was a great barometer for the energy and passion both New Zealand and Australia have for using outcomes information to improve mental health services.

We will be working through our evaluation forms, looking to see how we might improve things for next year's conference, and we are really looking forward to supporting Australia in hosting the Australasian mental health outcomes conference, 2008.

There are so many people to thank, perhaps this is best summarised in the following whakatauki:

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi engari he toa takitini

Mine is not the strength of an individual, but the strength of many.

Te Pare

Keep an eye out on the Te Pou homepage for notifcation of when these pages go live!

Page last updated: 7 April 2008