Wellbeing Support In The South Is Never Far Away

Mental health awareness goes well beyond Mental Health Awareness week (starting next week 23-29 September), as does the availability of services and support for people. There are often barriers to getting support, but with help onsite at many local general practices, often with same-day appointments getting mental health and wellbeing support has become a lot easier.

Access and Choice, the nation-wide mental health programme, integrates Health Improvement Practitioners (HIPs), Health Coaches (HCs) and Community Support Workers (CSWs) into general practice teams. Having help at your local doctor has been a game changer for many people. The Southern service – named Tokū Oranga locally – has delivered more than 130,000 sessions to more than 44,000 people in our Southern community in Otago and Southland since it launched in 2020.

Access and Choice practitioners offer free wellbeing support with 20–30-minute appointments to help people make changes towards improved wellbeing. Depending on the person’s needs, they will see a HIP, HC or CSW, who can help with a variety of support - no matter their age, life stage or concerns affecting their mental, physical, social and/or spiritual wellbeing.

Across the WellSouth general practice network in Southern of 78 practices, 50 have an Access & Choice/Tokū Oranga practitioner onsite. We asked some of the HIP’s, Health Coaches and Community Support Workers about their roles.

East Otago Health (Palmerston) HIP and WellSouth HIP Team Lead Roz Wood says:

“A lot of this job is normalising what most of us experience at times, and the lovely thing around picking apart these problems is that the person themselves usually holds the answer…it just sometimes takes some teasing out by us! Sometimes it is the most random little change that can bring great benefit.”

We can often see a person on the day for a ‘warm handover’, a key part of the success of the programme. People don’t have to take extra time out of their day to get to a different place to be seen, especially hard in a rural community. And we are free to see!”

WellSouth commissioned a formative evaluation of the programme in Southern for the year ending 2022. Evidence from interviews with 12 consumers, 12 months of programme data from a sample of 13 practices (total of 8511 introductions) and was resounding in the success of the programme. The report said consumers valued the programme to a great extent, with one saying they were ‘screaming from the balconies’ in support of it - a sentiment others shared.

Here is a quote from one patient:

“As a Kiwi male, you’re not gonna sort of sit your mates down and say, hey, I’m really struggling or whatever. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve got support networks around me. But the meeting [with the worker] itself wasn’t daunting. It kind of just pulled me up a little bit and that was enough for me.”

HIP Allie Monks from Cromwell Medical and Junction Practices explains what she does:

“I’m here to assist anyone facing challenges impacting their overall health and wellbeing. In the past two hours alone, I have interacted with a child experiencing bullying at school, a young couple dealing with financial stress due to rising rental costs, and an elderly gentleman seeking to enhance his relationship with his wife of 60 years.”

“Seeing a concerned and overwhelmed client regain their smile after discussing a potential career change, or observing a family successfully implement a bedtime routine that reduces evening stress, is wonderful. And it shows the significant impact of small, manageable changes.”

East Otago Health (Palmerston) Health Coach/CSW Gemma Fairbairn says:

“My role as health coach/support worker is to support people with goal setting for their own wellbeing in a safe and friendly space while working out of East Otago Health clinic 3 days a week. My appointments are free and last around 25minutes.”

“Common reasons I see people is to support and help with better understanding of cholesterol, pre-diabetes and other health concerns… I am also very passionate about advanced care planning and helping people get down on paper their final wishes.”

“I love every aspect of my role here in our awesome rural community, you get a real kick out of helping people achieve great steps towards better wellbeing, every patient is a happy story for me, whether their goal is big or small, they are all fantastic!”

Accessing the above services is easy and free. The Access and Choice team are based within GP practices so they are easily accessible and can usually be seen on the same day as a GP or Nurse appointment. If not, patients can independently make an appointment with reception for a time that suits them.

HIP Janelle Gibson, from the Access and Choice team in Gore, Southland gives a great summation:

“We can work with anything that is a problem of living, that comes up as part of being human, stress management, grief and loss, sleep issues, low mood, antenatal or postnatal wellbeing, chronic pain management or just to learn techniques to manage challenging thoughts, feelings and behaviours.”

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