Māhuri Tōtara: National support worker summit 2023 Evaluation report

Te Pou hosted Māhuri Tōtara National support worker summit on Tuesday, 13 June 2023. The theme of the summit was ‘The value of support work – recognising and celebrating support workers’ contribution and value’. The summit brought together support workers in a range of different roles across mental health and addiction services from across the country.

The purpose of the summit was to make support workers to feel proud of their mahi and the positive difference they make for tāngata whai ora. The event also aimed to facilitate support workers feeling connected as a workforce and create opportunities for them to reflect on their practice. Topics included:

• national activities supporting the development of the support workforce
• highlighting the scope and diversity of support worker roles and skills
• learning opportunities to enhance support work practice
• maintaining wellbeing as a support worker.

The summit was a one day in-person event held at Harbourside Function Centre, Wellington. To assist support workers to attend Māhuri Tōtara, Te Pou offered a limited number of travel and accommodation grants to assist some organisations with the cost of their staff’s attendance at the summit. People who received grants also provided feedback.

This report summarised feedback from people who attended the summit and responded to the post summit feedback survey, as well as from those who received grant funding.