Wairarapa Maori service shut down

Kaituitui staff who have lost jobs in the shock closure of the service includes Hera Edwards, left, Pania Haruru, Francis McNally-Te Maari, Kelly Maugatai, and Andre Le Geyt. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

The axing of a Maori social services team will forsake scores of struggling families in Wairarapa at a crucial time of the year, team leaders say, and has sparked a grievance claim from the group for hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost income.

The Whanau Ora Wairarapa Kaituitui Service has run for the past two years out of offices in Masterton and will cease on December 31, according to a letter from its governance collective to the team and stakeholders late last month.

Independent chairman of the collective, Jason Kerehi, says in the letter the closure was due to "the inability of the (collective) partners to work together".

"We acknowledge that the greatest loss will be felt in our communities with our whanau, and our staff who have lost their jobs and we humbly apologise to them and you that it has come to this conclusion."

The Wairarapa service was started for a three-year period to next June as part of the Whanau Ora programme championed by former Maori Party leader and inaugural Whanau Ora Minister Tariana Turia.

Kaupapa Maori welfare initiative teams like Kaituitui were founded as "navigator agencies" that link referred or self-referred families to integrated health, education and social services with a view to eventual self-management.

The collective today comprises senior leaders from Masterton-based Maori health providers Whaiora and Te Hauora Runanga O Wairarapa, and Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa iwi authority. Te Pou Matakana had become the latest commissioning agency for Whanau Ora collectives and had already rubber-stamped an oral hygiene programme in Wairarapa to be delivered through Whaiora.

Kaituitui Service team leader Pania Haruru and programme manager Andre Le Geyt told the Wairarapa Times-Age the closure was a bombshell for the more than 70 enrolled whanau, and the team, who had fought to stay afloat before they engaged lawyers to sue for breach of contract.

Kaituitui had won praise at its first annual review and was described as a "national exemplar", they said, while a team survey had found "100 per cent satisfaction" among enrolled whanau and partner agencies.

The Ministry of Education had sought to replicate some service elements and a Wairarapa lawyer was crestfallen at its imminent closure after also referring whanau, they said. Kaituitui had also run programmes through schools and social agencies that had engaged more than 250 people.

Ms Haruru and Mr Le Geyt in September took their plight to MP Te Ururoa Flavell, Minister for Whanau Ora and Maori Party co-leader, and Te Puni Kokiri chief executive Michelle Hippolite. The pair last week also spoke to Maori Party co-leader and list MP Marama Fox, who lives in Masterton.

Conflict had been brewing among senior leaders since at least August, the pair said, and a pitch was turned down from Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa to take over from the troubled collective. Whaiora had made a similar pitch as well.

Mr Kerehi said Te Puni Kokiri was remodelling the Wairarapa service delivery and was to announce its plans at the end of the week. The team had agreed to prepare enrolled whanau for the upcoming shift in support.

"We as a Maori community need to stand up and own that it didn't work. We're responsible for this. We made a commitment that we couldn't keep because we couldn't work together."

Mrs Fox said she was "distressed and disappointed" irreconcilable differences among senior leaders had sparked the dissolution of the service team and left scores of enrolled whanau "effectively in limbo".

"They've given good service to whanau, who have gone on to change and transformation in their lives. What we need to be aware of is the whanau themselves, and the staff who will bear the greatest effect of this decision."