Cultural narratives and whānau support during Covid-19

It was great to be back at school for Ataahua after the Covid lockdown last year.

Last year, Education Gazette described how cultural narratives and whānau transformation are at the heart of Camberley School’s approach to learning and engagement. 

The Hastings school was the hub of the community’s response during and after last year’s nationwide Level 4 Covid lockdown, says principal Amohia Rolls. 

“When we went into lockdown, we identified key families. We put our families into whakapapa family groupings. We identified key people within those family tree lines across the community to be whānau reps. I would text a message for the community saying something like, ‘Does anybody need support with x,y or z?’

“The reps would send the message out across their kumara vine and we would get back messages like: ‘#63 x street needs nappies; #25 x street: pregnant mother feeling ill’. We had a spreadsheet set up, where we would put the information for the response team which consisted of teachers and community members. We would look at the need and then we would send a request on to the delivery team – whānau within the hub – who delivered food parcels. 

“Community nurses, police and other services that we worked with supported us when needed. They would get an email saying, ‘Delivery Team Request’ and it might say: ‘Pregnant mother feeling unwell’ and the nurses would go and visit. They would write the outcome in the spreadsheet,” she explains.

Advocating for whānau

The response team became advocates for families, says Amohia.

“Knowing the situations for most of the families really well, we knew who really needed support and what that looked like. 

“There were times when we had to advocate and argue the rules around how food distribution was happening because a lot of the services took a while to get established.

“Some were gathering data as they were going, which you understand. But often if you were to fill out forms online to ask for food, you have to pick ‘Is it OK to share this with all the other services?’ and if you pick ‘No’, you can’t get any further. So, there were barriers to accessing what they needed,” she says.

While Camberley School had been working hard to build relationships with whānau prior to Covid-19, Amohia says the pandemic brought the community together.

“It’s been awesome. It’s brought us closer together as a community and we’ve got a lot more trust and a lot more people coming for support now that probably wouldn’t have come, but because of Covid we’ve become the place-based support space in our community,” she says.

Supporting wellbeing

The wellbeing space at the school – Rongo Mauri – has cultural practitioners and whānau navigators working alongside school staff and agencies to provide support to the school’s community. Cultural narrative therapy is provided as a free service to whānau.

Amohia says that whānau missed having access to Rongo Mauri during last year’s Covid-19 lockdown, and attendance at the wellbeing centre has soared over the past year. 

“Since Rongo Mauri was established, whānau feel more comfortable to come in for support, sometimes by appointment or sometimes they just walk in now when there’s an issue. Issues range from family harm, suicide, access to food, homelessness and mental health.”

The school adopts a whole-whānau approach, not just focusing on individuals, because whatever is going on at home impacts the learning of the tamariki at Camberley School, explains Amohia.

“If we’ve got a child here in the school who’s got anger problems because their brother has just tried to commit suicide and the services aren’t picking him up for six weeks – do we just leave that rangatahi and hope he’s not going to do it again? 

“We’ve got mentors that work with them in the community and in their homes to support them so that they’ve got something to look forward to until other people can get involved.

“I would say that this community is on life support. We’re seeing a huge influx of people coming for help and saying: ‘There’s nothing out there, or we don’t feel comfortable with the support provided, can you help us?’” she says.

Tureti explores the different phases the moon, which is part of learning how to apply the Maramataka Māori lunar calendar to an everyday way of being and knowing.

Mātauranga Māori

Indigenous ecosystems, including mātauranga Māori of atua (gods) and tupuna were used to help whānau navigate the impact of Covid-19.

“Covid itself was restricting. We don’t have a purakau [legend] for Covid, but we do have one about when Ranginui and Papatūānuku were in a state of restriction [noho tatapu] stuck together and their children were in between them. It was cramped and uncomfortable and it was a situation they did not chose to be in, and they wanted to change.

“We often use that story when we are in situations we don’t want to be in as well. We talk about the atua that communicated the change that needed to happen. We talk about that in real-life situations daily with the kids at school. We use the same stories in their whānau therapy sessions. You are actually using the story as a focus, but you are reflecting on your own life.”

Addressing inter-generational trauma

Covid-19 exposed long-term issues faced by the Camberley community, such as family harm and drug and alcohol abuse. Amohia and her team are engaged in hard, sometimes overwhelming, mahi, but she sees some light at the end of the tunnel.

“We’re seeing change. We’ve been able to prevent suicides. People come here to talk to our mentors. My first year here [2018] we had a huge amount of uplift by agencies in the one year. 

“In one week, I had children from three families uplifted and that’s when I thought: ‘This can’t keep happening – this is not even humane’. There’s huge trauma that’s involved that’s going to affect the next generation – we’re addressing inter-generational trauma.”

Tamariki and whānau are being taught to use ancestral tools to become self-sufficient.

“Our kids always cope because they have to – they don’t have a choice, otherwise they have to wait for people. What we’re trying to do is give our families and children the tools. We call them ancestral tools, or tupuna tools, to help them look within,” says Amohia.

Learn more about Camberley School’s kaupapa and mahi in ‘Helping tamariki and whānau to thrive’ in Issue 11, 2020(external link).