Whanganui caregiver and lead facilitator of Woven Whānau Rachel Puru has received an Excellence in Foster Care Award for going “above and beyond”.
Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro presented the award to Puru at a ceremony last month.
Woven Whānau is a Whanganui-based initiative that aims to support parents and grandparents.
Puru became involved with Woven Whānau after taking guardianship of two of her grandchildren in 2019 when she visited New Zealand.
“We came home and realised our mokos were in need...” she said.
Puru had been living in Perth and working as a caregiver in a dementia hospital, and was not planning on leaving that life before realising her grandchildren needed help.
Shortly into her journey of becoming a caregiver, Puru realised she needed help too.
“Taking that role on you find yourself really drowning and grasping at whatever you can find,” she said.
“I just needed to be heard and needed a safe space.”
She attended the first Grandparents Raising Mokopuna hui hosted by Woven Whānau in 2020. When a part-time role as the lead facilitator supporting grandparents raising grandchildren for Woven Whānau came up, Puru successfully applied.
Woven Whānau co-ordinator Lynette Archer said the decision to choose Puru for the role was not difficult.
“We knew what the role needed was a heart that had empathy, but also a heart that was strength-based,” Archer said.
“We’ve been able to build something because of how Rachel does her mahi.”
At the original meeting Puru attended in 2020, there were seven grandparents. Now more than 50 are connected to the group.
Each of the people involved in Woven Whānau, including Rene Fitton, Beth Savage, Jo Voice, Vicky Parsons, Archer and Puru, has lived experience as a single parent or as grandparents raising grandchildren.
“It’s crucial that you’ve walked the walk,” Fitton said.
Puru credited her award to the five women and others in her support system.
“That award has my name on it, but there’s many, many other names that sit behind it,” she said.
Puru was presented with the Excellence in Foster Care Award alongside nine other recipients in a ceremony at Government House in Wellington on March 7.
The award is given to people who go above and beyond in their caregiving and in supporting other caregivers.
Woven Whānau is based on a lived model of informal support, focusing on building relationships and connections with caregivers to help guide them through the emotionally and logistically difficult process.
“There’s family harm, there’s Family Court, there’s Oranga Tamariki, there’s Ministry of Social Development, there’s just layers and layers to navigate,” Puru said.
“We could sit together for days and say nothing but just feel safe and grieve or laugh, whatever you need to do.”
Most of the grandparents Woven Whānau works with are whānau caregivers, meaning they do not receive support from Oranga Tamariki.
Puru was the only whānau caregiver of the 10 winners of the Excellence in Foster Care Award.
Not being involved in a formal support structure meant they often flew under the radar, Puru said.
“Somewhere along their journey, a decision is made that the children are in need of care and protection and at that time you know they’ve had some level of trauma ... but the resources don’t come to support that trauma.”
She hoped therapy and trauma support would be more readily available in the future for people like her and her grandchildren.
“It should be a given that the therapy should come at the start, that these families can access counselling and trauma-informed therapy as a resource and a tool,” she said.
Archer said the method of support Woven Whānau had created had proven successful and was needed in Whanganui, so the group aimed to expand to more caregivers in need.
“We’ve got a project happening at the moment where we’re exploring how we can use the model of what has emerged in a way that we can capture it and offer it to other communities in New Zealand,” Archer said.
“That’s our dream.”
Olivia Reid is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.