Glossary
The following descriptions have been taken from a variety of sources and are not meant to be definitive. As language evolves, terms can quickly become outdated.
Resources used in understanding te reo Māori include Te Reo Hāpai: The Language of Enrichment3 and Te Aka Māori Dictionary.4
| Ableism | A word for unfairly favouring non-disabled people and prioritising the needs of non-disabled people over disabled people.5 |
| Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) | A psychological therapy that teaches mindfulness and acceptance skills for responding to uncontrollable experiences. It has been found useful for people with mild to moderate depression.6 |
| Ageism | Refers to stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age.7 |
| Aroha | Love, compassion, empathy, sympathy, kindness.8 |
| Associative stigma | Stigma experienced by whānau and others associated with a person experiencing addiction and/or mental health challenges.8 |
| Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) | Refers to all the ways someone communicates besides talking. People of all ages can use AAC if they have trouble with speech or language skills. Augmentative means to add to someone’s speech. Alternative means to be used instead of speech.9 |
| Biphobia | Discrimination against bisexual people or bisexuality. This may include negative stereotyping or denying the existence of bisexual people. Biphobia can be perpetuated by people who identify either within or outside of rainbow communities.10 |
| Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) | A form of psychological treatment demonstrated to be effective for a range of mental health challenges.11 |
| Cognitive capacity | A legal term referring to a person’s ability to understand the information necessary for decision making and understand likely outcomes of decisions. This includes having the ability to: understand and retain relevant information, use or weigh relevant information as part of a specific decision-making process, and communicate a decision.12 |
| Cognitive impairment | Reduced functioning or difficulties in one or more cognitive domains that is noticeable and measurable. Cognitive impairment is considered amongst what is ‘typical’ for a person’s context, including whānau, culture, social group(s), and age.12 |
| Community | Groups that people identify and associate with; the many places in which people live.8 |
| Culture | The shared attitudes, beliefs, values, experiences, and/or practice of groups.8 |
| Cultural safety | An approach that acknowledges, respects, and values the cultural identities and experiences of tāngata whai ora while addressing power imbalances in relationships. The approach is focused on how care is received by tāngata whai ora, ensuring their dignity and rights are upheld.8 |
| Cultural supervision | Supervision that affirms one’s own culture, cultural accountability, and development. Cultural supervision can be part of professional supervision, but it is also considered a type of supervision in its own right.13 |
| De-escalation techniques | A set of complex interactive processes in which a highly aroused person is redirected from an unsafe course of action towards a supported and calmer emotional state.14 |
| Dementia | An umbrella term used to describe the impaired ability to think that is different from a usual consequence of ageing. It results in both cognitive and functional limitations. Dementia affects memory, orientation, comprehension and calculation. It compromises a person’s judgement as well as their ability to understand written and verbal language and to communicate. These limitations eventually result in a lack of mental capacity.15 |
| Elder abuse | A single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person.16 |
| Enabling Good Lives | Foundation and framework to guide positive change for disabled people, families, communities and governance structures.17 |
| Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) | The law, specifically the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988 (PPPR Act), allows for a person to plan ahead by make an enduring power of attorney – or “EPA” – where you give someone you trust the power to make decisions for you if you become unable to make them yourself.18 |
| Evidence-based practice | Integration of:
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| Gender-affirming care and practices | Any practice that affirms and/or supports an individual's gender. This can include transition-related healthcare, as well as therapy that supports people through the transition process.8 |
| Hapū | Kinship group, clan, grouping of various whānau generally based on a shared ancestor.8 |
| Hauora | Health, vigour, including hauora tinana (physical health), hauora hinengaro (mental and emotional health), whānau (social wellbeing), and wairua (spiritual health).8 |
| Homophobia | Discrimination against gay or lesbian people, and people of other diverse sexualities.10 |
| Intergenerational trauma | The effects of traumatic experiences endured during childhood and adulthood being transmitted to subsequent generations.19 |
| Interpreter | A person whose role is to provide a translation between two (or more) speakers, either orally or via sign language.8 |
| Intersectionality | An analysis of oppression, discrimination, and privilege which states that oppressions based on different social categories (such as sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, disability, education, age, and class) are interlinked in ways that are unique, and therefore cannot be addressed separately from one another.8 |
| Iwi | Extended kinship group, nation, people, grouping of various hapū generally based on a shared ancestor.8 |
| Kaimahi | Worker, staff, employee.4 |
| Kaumātua | General term for an elder of mana within the community, whānau, or marae.8 |
| Kotahitanga | Unity, togetherness, or solidarity, emphasising the importance of collective action, shared purpose, and collaboration among individuals, groups, or communities to achieve a common goal.8 |
| Least restrictive practices | Practices that enhance autonomy and respect people’s rights, individual worth, dignity, and privacy.14 |
| Mana | Often defined as prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, spiritual power, charisma or status and standing; mana may be accorded a person or group through ancestral descent, and through possession of certain gifts or achievements, and can be enhanced through the collective opinion of others.8 |
| Manaaki | To support, take care of, extend hospitality, protect, show generosity, care for. 4 |
| Mate wareware | Te reo Māori for dementia.4 |
| Mokopuna | Grandchildren, grandchild - child or grandchild of a son, daughter, nephew, niece, etc.4 |
| Multidisciplinary teams | Involves a range of health professionals, from one or more organisations, working together to deliver comprehensive support to people.21 |
| Needs Assessment and Service Coordination (NASC) | Needs Assessment Service Coordination (NASC) agencies operate the needs assessment and service coordination process on behalf of Health New Zealand.22 |
| Older people | People aged 65 and over but recognises the diversity of this age group – people age differently and have different aspirations and needs.23 |
| Ōritetanga | Equity.8 |
| Outcome | Result or consequence; ‘outcome-focused’ activities apply skills, knowledge and abilities, systems and processes to achieve effective results.8 |
| Pakeke | Te reo Māori term for adult.4 |
| Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | May develop when someone lives through or witnesses an event in which they believe there is a threat to life or physical integrity and safety and experiences fear, terror, or helplessness.24 |
| Problematic substance use | Patterns of substance use that negatively impact people’s lives, including those that do not meet diagnostic criteria for substance use disorders. Aligning with a more strengths-based and recovery-oriented approach, problematic substance use is a preferred term when talking about people’s experiences and experienced harm.12 |
| Professional development | The process of increasing capability in relation to work; can apply to kaimahi, students, and volunteers.8 |
| Psychogeriatric care | Support in which the primary clinical purpose or treatment goal is improvement in the functional status, behaviour and/or quality of life for an older person with significant psychiatric or behavioural disturbance.27 |
| Rongoā Māori | Natural remedy, traditional treatment, Māori medicine.4 |
| Self-neglect | Inability or unwillingness of vulnerable adults to meet their basic needs themselves, thereby compromising their wellbeing.28 |
| Self-stigma | Internalised feelings of shame, low self-esteem and self-efficacy; a stigmatised person internalises negative societal beliefs and feelings and the social devaluation attached to their stigmatised status.8 |
| Sexism | Beliefs around the fundamental nature of women and men and the roles they should play in society. Sexist assumptions about women and men, which manifest themselves as gender stereotypes, can rank one gender as superior to another. Such hierarchical thinking can be conscious, or unconscious, manifesting itself as unconscious bias.29 |
| Social frailty | Defined as a continuum of being at risk of losing, or having lost, resources that are important for fulfilling one or more basic social needs during the life span.30 |
| Supported decision-making | An approach that uses resources (such as nominated support person, peer support, personal advocate) to empower and enable people to make their own decisions based on their will and preferences. The approach recognises and responds to the values, beliefs, cultures, and languages of tāngata whai ora and whānau. For example, it includes collective decision-making approaches (such as decision-making with whānau) informed by tikanga Māori and grounded in te ao Māori.31 |
| Takatāpui | An ancient Māori term to embrace culture, spirituality, and connection to whakapapa. It has many meanings for iwi and hapū, traditionally meaning “intimate partner of the same sex.” In contemporary times, Takatāpui has been reclaimed to denote all those with diverse sex characteristics, gender identities and expressions and sexualities as well as tangata whenua identity.32 |
| Takatāpui and Rainbow communities | Takatāpui and rainbow communities include people with innate sex characteristics that do not fit normative medical or social ideas for male or female bodies; people who have a gender identity or expression that does not match the sex they were assigned at birth, including people who do not fit typical binary gender norms; and/or people who are not heterosexual.33 |
| Tāngata whai ora | People accessing services seeking wellbeing.8 |
| Tāngata whenua | Indigenous, local people.4 |
| Tapu and noa | Tapu - sacred, prohibited, restricted, set apart, forbidden, under atua protection.4 Noa - to be free from the extensions of tapu, ordinary, unrestricted, void.4 |
| Te ao Māori | The Māori world, including te reo, tikanga, marae (community focal points), wāhi tapu (sites of sacred significance) and access to whānau, hapū, and iwi.8 |
| Te reo Māori | Māori language.8 |
| Te Tiriti o Waitangi | The founding treaty document of Aotearoa New Zealand that states rights and responsibilities agreed between the Crown and Māori.8 |
| Te Whare Tapa Whā | Māori health model based on the concepts of whānau (family), tinana (physical), hinengaro (mental) and wairua (spiritual) health.34 |
| Tikanga Māori | Correct Māori procedure, custom, practice, protocol.8 |
| Tino rangatiratanga | Sovereignty, self-determination, autonomy, self-government.4 |
| Transference | Psychological term for projecting your feelings, based on past experiences, onto someone else in the present.35 |
| Transphobia | Fear or dislike of a person, or a group of people, because they are non-binary or transgender (or are perceived to be so).36 |
| Trauma-informed approach | A term used to describe a programme, organisation or system that:
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| Tuakiri tangata | Persona, personality, identity.8 |
| Tūrangawaewae | Domicile, standing, place where one has the right to stand - place where one has rights of residence and belonging through kinship and whakapapa.4 |
| Vicarious trauma | The cumulative impact of prolonged exposure to the trauma of other people, resulting in negative shifts in an individual’s personal beliefs, worldview, attitude, and sense of safety.8 |
| Wai | Water, liquid, juice.4 |
| Wairua | Spirit, soul - spirit of a person which exists beyond death.4 |
| Wairuatanga | Spirituality.4 |
| Wellbeing | All dimensions of health: tinana (physical), hinengaro (mental and emotional), whānau (social), and wairua (spiritual).8 |
| Whakapapa | Genealogy, lineage, descent, blood ties.8 |
| Whakawhanaunga | Forging relationships, getting to know one another, exploring mutual whakapapa connections.4 |
| Whānau | An inclusive term for family and wider family structures and anyone who a person considers to be close to them and important in their life.8 |
| Whānau Māori | Whānau as it pertains to Māori family and identity.8 |
| Whānau ora | The achievement of maximum health and wellbeing among whānau Māori.8 |
| Whenua | Land.4 |
| Term | Description |
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