When you’re old what do you want? Unfortunately many people never ask themselves this question... but Presbyterian Support Northern has frequently asked this question of itself and its stakeholders over the past couple of years, and the answers have brought about a fantastic and revolutionary change in the services we now provide for older New Zealanders.
Enliven provides people who are over 65 the opportunity to choose to stay in their own homes, with the practical support and encouragement necessary to achieve this. The core concept of this service is maximising independence and promoting positive ageing.
What is positive ageing? Positive ageing is a philosophy that recognises that some things make for a healthier, happy life, no matter what your age:.
Presbyterian Support Northern’s Enliven services work under this philosophy, which means that everything our key support workers do with our clients aims to help them to maintain or achieve these ends. Enliven offers clients and their families and whanau the expertise our team has built up over decades of working with older people.
With Enliven, you don’t have to sacrifice independence for comfort and safety. The service is designed to take into account not only practical day-to-day needs, but the emotional support and encouragement that can make such a difference.
There is no fixed list of services with Enliven. Enliven staff will work with clients to develop a personally tailored service package based on their changing needs and what is important to them. We want to make sure that the support we give is the support our clients actually need in order to stay in their own home, and feel great about it!
The core beliefs of Presbyterian Support Southland’s Child & Family Service are based on the need of children for continuity and attachment. We believe this is best met by children remaining within their own family or whanau whenever possible.
We provide a range of services designed to support and encourage families as they meet the needs of their children. This is achieved through core services, like foster care, counselling and social work support, and through various preventative education and support programmes.
The latest is a Parenting Programme, delivered over 10 weeks then followed by three sessions at six-week intervals to review, reinforce and support what was learned. Staff are also available after the course, on a one-to-one basis, to further assist participants needing support to meet their goals. It is this follow up that separates the programme from others and increases its effectiveness.
The programme is delivered three times a year to between 15 and 20 adults, ranging from fathers parenting on their own to single grandmothers parenting their grandchildren. Extremely high completion rates, growing waiting lists and positive evaluations returned by participants are testament to its value.
Presbyterian Support identified the need for this type of training, initially among families accessing our other services, and presented a strong case to the Invercargill Licensing Trust (a local community funder) to fund the bulk of the project for at least three years.
We are looking at ways to extend the reach of the programme, including the possibility of delivering it on a one-off basis in a small rural town, in conjunction with a local community group.
All this would not be possible without the co-operation of referring agencies, funders, community groups and Presbyterian Support Southland as the service provider.