Central Hawke's Bay "Solutions" project launched

A project to find out meaningful information about Central Hawke’s Bay’s health and social services has been launched this week.

The six-month project – “Solutions” – has been funded by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and is a joint initiative between Central Hawke’s Bay District Council, Central Health, and Anglican Care, Waiapu Social Services.

Mayor Trish Giddens says project “Solutions” will first map all of the health and social services in CHB, and involve the whole community.

“This is very exciting for Central Hawke’s Bay. It’s a chance to survey service providers and citizens to discover any barriers or gaps in services and resourcing. An example is the concerns many parents have about the loss of the PAFT (Parents as First Teachers) free education course. Surveys will be available in the next week, so I encourage everyone to be a part of answering questions in order to find long-term ‘Solutions’ for Central Hawke’s Bay.”

Central Health CEO, Brenda Kupa-White agrees with Mayor Giddens. “I am thrilled that Central Health can host intern, Fiona Bell, who has been funded by the DIA to complete this project. Working collaboratively is one of our key priorities, and we will support Fiona to develop a Community Health and Social Services directory which should be the first ‘solution’ to improving communication and awareness of services throughout all of our communities.”

Over the next few months, surveys will be sent to service providers as well as householders, and then the information collated and a report produced. This report will then be presented to the Central Hawke’s Bay community as a source of quality information and a way forward to finding ‘solutions’ to any identified concerns, gaps, or barriers that the project may find.

Further information can be obtained by telephoning Fiona Bell on 8589 559.