Enliven New Zealand
Caring, enabling, supporting
Enliven services support older people and those living with disabilities to maximise independence and enjoy fulfilling lives. The principles of caring, enabling and supporting underpin all Enliven services. We believe it is important to recognise emotional, cultural and social needs, as well as meeting practical day-to-day care requirements.
Our philosophy recognises that people need to maintain control over their lives. We aim to build on people’s strengths in a way that preserves dignity and promotes overall wellbeing.
Enliven New Zealand encompasses seven regional Enliven organisations nationwide, with each region offering services that respond to local needs.
Some examples of Enliven services are:
Our Dementia Mate Wareware – HomeShare Pilot
in Te Wai Pounamu
Presbyterian Support Upper South Island is proud to hold the contract for a collaboration between 12 organisations across Te Waipounamu – 4 Home Care, 5 Alzheimer/Dementia NGOs and 3 Marae. Together we plan to provide respite to support the South Island’s rural communities, Māori, and people with Young Onset Dementia.
Our goal is to weave Treaty Enhancing approaches in all that is undertaken and deliver respite for the target populations in 17 sites across Te Waipounamu (13 rural, 3 Māori and 1 Young Onset service).
Our mission is to provide a day respite service that is fun to attend and provides socialisation, stimulation, friendship and education. All referrals are through Te Whatu Ora’s NASC assessment teams which ensures the service is free: there are no private payers for this government-funded pilot. Together we developed and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to agree on the key responsibilities of each agency and understand how teams will work together.
If it’s led by Presbyterian Support, it’s values driven.
| Arohatanga | Respect |
| Raranga | Caring |
| Manaaki | Compassion |
| Whakawhanaungatanga | Relationship Building |
| Kaitiakitanga | Guardianship |
We also developed a Position Paper on Dementia/Mate Wareware to go further promoting these values with decision-makers and advocating for more measures to be taken as New Zealand’s population ages.
[To view Presbyterian Support NZ’s position paper on Dementia/Mate Wareware click here].
If you’re in the South Island and living with Dementia, or have a whānau member with Mate Wareware, it doesn’t matter what age – contact us at Presbyterian Support for information about how to be assessed by a local NASC team for referral to our Pilot programme.
Our rural Homeshares can be found in Wanaka, Oamaru, Balclutha, Waimate, Geraldine, Temuka, Wakefield, Spring Creek, Havelock, and Reefton. We are working on HomeShare with our Māori Health teams in Otago, Timaru, and Christchurch. The Homeshare for Young Onset Dementia is in Ōtautahi, Christchurch.
Supporting Our Older People – Are we doing enough, as a country, to be able to support our older people now and into the future?
NZCCSS have delved into this question as part of their latest report, Te Kōrero mō ngā Kaumātua: Exploring the context of older people in Aotearoa New Zealand.
This online resource provides the fullest possible picture of the social, environmental and structural context of older people in New Zealand – as well as what is missing. By framing it as an easy-to-read guide with links to further information, we hope it will be of benefit to a wide variety of people in Aotearoa – those who form the cohort, policymakers, the community, health and social services workforce, funders, families, the media, or anyone with a curiosity about this age stage.
With a rapidly ageing population, having high quality, accessible and clear information to support understanding of this group is crucial. And yet, the information needed to gain a full picture is spread widely and can require specialist skills – and considerable time – to track down. This resource seeks to correct that and aims to be a considered overview of a complex field.
This work was also intended as a call to action, to generate interest and spark collaboration. NZCCSS members have observed that many of the issues faced by older New Zealanders can be traced back to a lack of prioritisation of older persons’ needs. NZCCSS feel strongly that this is because of systemic ageism that undervalues and deprioritises the needs of older New Zealanders.
Without specific older persons’ policy, and attention within and across the system, the issues we are seeing of insufficient funding, isolation and loneliness, physical and mental health deterioration, digital divide, and lack of visibility for older persons’ needs will persist or grow as this population increases in size.
Te Kōrero mō ngā Kaumātua is available on the NZCCSS website and they’re sure you will find it useful. They are available to come in to present their findings to your team as well as collaborate on next steps to best support our older people across Aotearoa. If you’re interested in this, please email .
For more articles from Presbyterian Support New Zealand follow this link to our News page.