Home to help families

HOME: Jim Berry, new Family Works manager. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

Jim Berry recently took up the position of Family Works' Regional Manager, Whanganui and Manawatu.
On July 11 he joined the family-focused social services team working out of the building behind Trinity Methodist Church in Wicksteed St, moving into the job vacated by Cheryl Edwards. Big shoes to fill, as he so readily admits.
Before that he was an inspector with the Department of Corrections, and although based in Auckland during that phase of his career, Jim hails from Ratana.
"I wanted to come home and there wasn't an inspector's position in Whanganui, although this work couldn't be any further removed from what I did with the inspectorate," he says. "It's prevention, intervention earlier that would normally be the case in the work I did."
He's also finding out an awful lot about the health of the town.
Jim left Whanganui in 2006, having been with Corrections since 1988. He started his career at Kaitoke as a prison officer, becoming manager of the prison in 1997. He stayed there until he moved to Auckland as a prison inspector.
This is what he wants to do for the rest of his working life.
"I wasn't aware of the need in the community. I would have walked past a lot of situations and taken no notice, but now I tend to walk up to people and ask if I can help."
Jim qualified as a counsellor and used that skill for an organisation called Homebuilders while he was managing Kaitoke Prison.
"One of the things the prison is really good on is helping people progress not just in work but in life."
He, his staff and their families also took a course in Te Reo through Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
"We did the first two levels in six months - we were fast tracked. The biggest challenge though was bringing the Maori Focus Unit down from New Plymouth. We brought the taonga down to Whanganui and we thought there might be issues with it, but John Maihi and Jim Takarangi helped us with that process."
During those years of prison management, Jim and his wife Marj were managing City College Hostel in Campbell St and Jim was also chairman of the school's Board of Trustees. In 2012 he and Marj took time out and went to live in Australia for a year where he worked for an NGO in Coolangatta.
"It was a disabilities company. I wanted to do something that was meaningful and for the community."
A family tragedy brought them home and Jim got a job as a disabilities manager with Idea Services in Tauranga. He was there for more than a year before Corrections realised he was back in the country and made him an offer. That took him to Turangi for 12 months as a manager before moving back to Auckland as an inspector.
"It's been great moving back here," he says. "Coming home is the best thing we've done in the last 20 years."
Jim sees life skills as being one of the main qualifications for his new job in Family Works; that, and an ability to manage people.
"It's not as big a team as I'm used to managing, but they're really qualified, intelligent people who want to help. The people make the difference here."
There are policies they have to follow, but Family Works' General Manager Central, Julia Hennessy is happy if they do the best for the people that they can. "How we manage that is up to us, pretty much," says Jim. A little of the required funding for the organisation comes from Government, but most of it must be raised by Family Works.
"We have backing from Presbyterian Support Services; without that backing things would be a little more difficult.
"Sometimes people can't afford the counselling or the social work we provide. My thoughts are, if they need it, let's give it to them and worry about the cost later."
Cheryl Edwards worked with Jim for the first two weeks, during which time he networked with other groups that provide complementary services.
"They were very supportive."
He says Family Works nationwide is as the name suggests, family oriented. "I haven't come across an organisation like this in which people are friends ... it's family. I'm really enjoying this environment.
"The challenge for me is to do the best job I can to assist these people [the staff] to do their work, because they're the real heroes here."