Plunket Māori cultural capability

The majority of Pluket staff are non-Māori and of approximately 1,200 paid staff there are about 128 Māori staff. To increase opportunities for Plunket staff to be culturally aware and culturally safe when working with Māori whānau, frameworks, policies, guidelines, templates, resources and tools have been developed.

These include:

• Te Wharetangata ki te tai ao framework
• Plunket marae protocol, karakia and waiata booklet
• Koha policy and guidelines
• Tikanga best practices policy
• Bilingual signage guidelines
• Māori macrons policy and guidelines
• Māori cultural guidelines

We have been regularly celebrating Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori and Matariki for the past three years.

Some of the resources developed for these occasions are:

• Learning te Reo
• Inoi
• Pepeha
• Fun with te Reo
• Te Reo Māori Plunket Messages
• Te Kupu Rangatira
• Mātariki Kōrero
• Matariki Quiz
• Matariki Calendar

The strength of cultural identity and language can be directly linked to the health and wellbeing of tamariki and whānau.

Plunket aims to enhance Te Reo Māori through using it in Plunket resources for whānau. There have been several projects that focused on te reo such as Parenting Thru Te Reo CDs and the translation of an NZQA Education in schools parenting course module for secondary schools.

Over the next few years, we plan to develop a bilingual software e-learning package for parents.