More Skills for Working with Older People in Mental Health and Addiction Services – whakapapa

In 2018, Te Pou began a project to identify workforce development priorities to grow and develop the mental health and addiction workforce for older people. This work identified the need to build workforce capability to better support older people. See Working with older people: Mental health and addiction workforce development priorities.

Initial discussions at the 2024 Te Pou Older Persons Mental Health and Addiction Leadership Day helped identify options for making Let’s get real more relevant to this specialist workforce, as summarised in Let's get real older persons' option paper - summary paper.

This led to the development of More Skills for Working with Older People in Mental Health and Addiction Services, which was undertaken in 2025 alongside the development of Keeping it Real | Kia Pono te Tika. The project responded to the need for workforce capability development in specialist services, and the needs of the rapidly growing and ethnically diverse aging population.

Te Pou thanks everyone who contributed to the development of this resource.

During the development phase, kaumātua (older Māori) played a crucial role, providing valuable input during wānanga sessions at Te Manukanuka o Hoturoa Marae.

Practitioners who support older people experiencing addiction and mental health challenges were part of a working group that made significant contributions to the framework's development.

The external reference group that had overseen the development of Keeping it Real | Kia Pono te Tika was also involved in the development of More Skills. This group included leaders from the workforce development centres and various addiction and mental health organisations.