Whānau Ora: Amanda and Andy's story

Published 5 May 2022

Amanda said COVID significantly impacted her whānau’s financial resilience, and that spending more time with her son Andy during lockdowns escalated her concerns about his antisocial behaviour towards some groups of people.  

Amanda’s husband is the sole earner for the whānau and because of COVID, he lost a huge portion of his income when he couldn’t access the wage subsidy scheme through his employer. To get more financial certainty, her husband secured a new job. On the day we reached out to the whānau, Amanda said that they were very close to tipping into hardship. They barely managed to pay for the previous week’s essentials and didn’t know how they would pay for accommodation and kai in the coming weeks while they waited for her husband’s new income to come through. Amanda said they had little success securing food from local foodbanks and marae.

Amanda also had concerns about Andy’s views on diversity. Andy has autism. Although she had raised the issue with his teachers at his kura, she felt that her concerns were unheard.  

Though our partnership with Te Puni Kōkiri, we were able to support the whānau to pay for urgent essentials. This included a week’s rent, grocery bills and petrol. We were also able to fund vouchers for kākahu like sleepwear for winter and shoes for Andy.

The funding also enabled us to connect the whānau with Wakakorihi. Wakakorihi is a Māori kaupapa service that specialises in training professionals involved in supporting disabled tamariki. After an initial meeting with the family, Amanda was relieved to learn that Wakakorihi will meet with Andy’s teachers to create school-based support and behaviour management plan that could improve his social connectedness.

We also conducted an early review with the whānau and identified that extra support for Andy was needed, including additional respite for mum. 

The whānau was grateful for the culture-based wrapround support they received from our team. We too are grateful for the continued partnership with TPK, which has enabled us to utilise our strengths, experience and networks to create positive outcomes for tāngata whaikaha and whānau. 

ENDS