In this session we revisit Hautū Waka, under the expert guidance of Roimata Taniwha-Paoo (Waikato - Maniapoto ki Pirongia).

This session focuses on Te Whiwhinga, a phase within Hautū Waka. In this phase, tohu (signs/signals) are clear and the course has been set to move towards the collective vision. We can see a way forward and are confident in our direction. We know the work that needs to be done.

Roimata supports us to tune in to 2025 and provides us with some practices that can be used in Te Whiwhinga to help us to navigate the coming year.

Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora, Mauri Noho, Mauri Mate

This sessions builds on the May 2022 Practice Foundations “What’s the mauri of the system” led by Dickie Humphries.

We have found that deepening our understanding of mauri supports us to work in complex systems like the public sector. Mauri also helps demonstrate the power and importance of how we, as individual kaimahi, show up within systems change work.

This was an experiential session led by Marisa Pene (Te Tau Ihu, Tokelau) and Eruini Hawke (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāti Maniapoto).

Social Investment brings together different perspectives and ways of measuring value and outcomes across social, economic and cultural domains. Doing it well requires integrated efforts across several disciplines, drawing from a range of sources of evidence, and focusing on short and longer term outcomes.

In this session we explored concepts of value, and approaches to evidencing and measuring value, relevant to social investment in Aotearoa, with kaikōrero Atawhai Tibble (Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau a Apanui, Tuwharetoa, Whanganui, and Raukawa ki te Tonga) and Dr Julian King (Tangata Tiriti).

There is increasing recognition that investing in the early years is the most effective way to get upstream of our most pressing social challenges. But how do we approach the ‘first 2000 days’ as a policy issue? What can we learn from other countries about what it takes to unleash the power of locally-led solutions?

In this session, Aimee Hadrup (Manager, Tamariki Wellbeing at The Southern Initiative) reported back on her Harkness Fellowship, where she engaged with a range of innovative early years focussed place-based initiatives across the US, as well as visited teams at leading academic institutions including the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, the Stanford University Centre on Early Childhood and the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities.

This session explores the art of resistance using blankets, threads, and needles to convey important stories. Frances Goulton shares some of those stories and then discusses the threads of her work – whānau, hapū, and iwi.

“Tangata Tiriti” is a term that has emerged from kōrero about the rights and responsibilities of tauiwi who have understood Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the first immigration document of Aotearoa New Zealand.

For our April Practice Foundations we did something a little bit different. The session was co-hosted by The Lab, Healthy Families Far North, and Lily Raphael of Vancouver Solutions Lab as part of the international series "Pushing the Boundaries of Public Sector Innovation”.

We connected with folks from Australia, North America, and beyond to explore the personal and structural aspects of systems change, grounded in an example from early years systems transformation efforts in Aotearoa.

We started our 2024 Practice Foundations by working with Roimata Taniwha-Pao’o. Roi helped us revisit Hautū Waka as an indigenous framework, methodology and practice for systems change. We used Hautū Waka to connect, tune in and share our observations from our respective areas - helping us begin to navigate 2024 collectively

‘Te Ao Hurihuri’ seems a fitting theme for 2023, it describes an ever-turning world, a world where the only constant is change.  This interactive session asks; “as co-design agents for transformative change, how do you remain a koha (gift) and not be seen as a hōhā (annoyance)?”

There is no question 2023 has been hard for many, a year where ‘once in a hundred years’ events seem to be a weekly occurrence, a year where societal pressures are at boiling point and people and systems are at breaking point. 

In this session Kimi shared insights from her use of these models, particularly around healing and strengthening.  This session is an opportunity to learn about these models and apply them in your practice, to better support rangatahi and their whaanau, as well as lifting these insights in a collective effort towards meaningful, whanau led, systems change.

Nested inside of Oranga Tamariki, Tākai is a community-led movement to support whānau with a vision of ‘kia matua rautia - a thriving village raising children together’.

In this session Maraea Teepa (Ngai Tuhoe), Manager, Voices of Whānau and Community shares Tākai’s journey towards a developing fit-for-purpose and values-led approach to investing into communities for intergenerational wellbeing. 

This session explores the role collective and intergenerational trauma plays in keeping our systems and humanity stuck. We share an approach that works to restore the past and seeks to create from a place of mauri ora, to create true and lasting change.  This is vital in Aotearoa NZ to heal our collective colonisation trauma and create new futures.

Nau mai haere mai to this Practice Foundations Session Tangata Whenua, Tangata Moana, Tangata Tiriti and the Vā space with Shane Ta’ala, Principal Design Advisor Māori, within Insights and Statistics at Statistics NZ. As a thought leader within the organisation, his role is to advance iwi-Māori data aspirations through data system architecture design that enables a mutuality between Te Ao Pakeha and Te Ao Māori through Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 

Tokona te Raki uses social innovation to achieve equity in education, employment, and income for all Māori in the Ngāi Tahu takiwā, and beyond. They are unweaving broken systems, imagining new horizons, driving systemic change, and empowering rangatahi Māori to lead long-term structural change to address challenges at their root cause. Eruera shared insights and learnings from Tokona’s approach to iwi-led systems change and how they are growing indigenous people, practices and tools for long-term transformation.

Nau mai haere mai to this session of Practice Foundations where we used Hautū Waka to help us to navigate ourselves forward in complex systems. Hautū Waka is a navigational framework rooted in mātauranga Māori and a tool for navigating the complexity of systems to build intergenerational equity and wellbeing.

The Hautū Waka framework has been developed by Roimata and Ayla Hoeta, guided by Matua Rereata Makiha. Roimata Taniwha-Paoo took us for a pipi dive into the practices and tools of Hautū Waka. This session builds on last years.

Karl Wixon specialises in envisioning, codesigning and achieving positive futures through thought leadership, strategy, change, design, growth and innovation. He brings a marriage of commercial, creative and cultural acumen to all he does and is frequently called on as a skilled facilitator to weave together complex collaborations spanning cultures, sectors, entities and interests to develop shared visions, find direction, and codesign solutions.

Te Tokotoru is a systems approach to wellbeing, developed alongside whānau and rangatahi. It provides a different starting point for designing and investing in equity and intergenerational wellbeing. It is being used in different government settings like Te Aorerekura to enable a shift towards strengthening and healing.

The Healthy Families South Auckland team is working with many of Auckland Council’s services to help local government promote health and wellbeing. One project has involved helping Auckland Council ECEs and after-school programmes to provide children with better access to good food. In this Practice Foundations session, Winnie Hauraki, Manager of Healthy Families South Auckland, will share how she and her team worked to make these shifts in the system, the approaches they took, and the challenges they faced.

He Whānau Whānui o Papakura (HWWoP) is a group of whānau residing or connected to Papakura, leading an innovation process focused on thriving futures for tamariki. Supported by Papakura Marae and The Southern Initiative (Auckland Council), HWWoP has been working with local agency leaders to design and test local prototypes that are strengths-based, values-led alternatives to current service and programmes models.

In this Practice Foundations session, Dickie Humphries will lead us through some of these questions, based on his own experience of responding to these same questions in his practice. He will introduce concepts and tools from Moana Nui, and reflect on practical and real-life lessons from his work in indigenising systems.