Haeata and CAYAD build a culture of care
Haeata Community Campus, whose name means dawn or beam of light in Te Reo Māori, is an Ōtautahi area school formed from the merger of Aranui High, Aranui Primary, Avondale Primary, and Wainoni School. In 2018, Waipuna CAYAD kaimahi Paul McMahon and Jakin Alaifea began a conversation with Rebecca Wilson, Haeata’s manager of Hauora (pastoral care), about developing an effective alcohol and other drugs (AOD) policy for the new school.
Rebecca was struck by the CAYAD team’s approach, specifically their experience co-creating AOD policies with ākonga (students) in other schools, and invited them to work with the school’s young people, staff, and teachers on a new process built from the ground up.
Students at the centre
Paul and Jakin facilitated eight follow-up sessions with students and staff. These sessions established a shared understanding of AOD in a school context and produced the guiding principles for the new procedure. The ākonga were highly influential throughout. Their most significant contribution was the introduction of a kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) response: a student arriving at school intoxicated would be sat down, given a feed and something warm or cool to drink, and asked what was going on for them, rather than immediately facing a stand-down.
“Mana enhancing… non-shaming… relationship focused.”
Ākonga present to the Board
Two strong student Māori leaders who emerged from the sessions, Steph and Cypress, presented to the Haeata Board of Trustees alongside Paul and Jakin. They spoke about why they supported the new process. It was the first time since the school’s founding that ākonga had presented at a BOT meeting. The Board adopted the process and policy without reservation.
“It’s not every school that enables ākonga to be so woven into the process and we really believe this is a great model for Haeata. The young people were amazing ambassadors.”
What happened next
In 2020, the Hauora team put the new process into practice. Rebecca reported it had become “one of the strongest processes we have.” There were fewer stand-downs, very few repeat offenders, and a strong uptake of Tautoko meetings by whānau and ākonga. The whole process had helped build trust between the school and its families.
Haeata and CAYAD Ōtautahi continue to collaborate on a whole-of-school approach to preventing and reducing AOD harm. This connects education and early intervention through to social and clinical services, so that every young person has the best chance of reaching their potential.
Paul McMahon, St John of God Waipuna, Ōtautahi. Case study first published by CAYAD, 2021. Read the original on cayad.org.nz.
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