Hon Matt Doocey
Minister for Mental Health

Minister for Mental Health Matt Doocey says contracts for his $1million peer workforce fund are in place and training has begun for some of the Peer Support Specialists, an important step in growing the peer support workforce.

“The peer support workforce already plays a vital role in providing and supporting mental health services, they are quicker to train and play a critical role in the overall mental health and addiction workforce,” Mr Doocey says.

“I am of the firm view we need to explore all options to grow and take pressure off the existing mental health workforce. While this won’t be a silver bullet, it is essential we put in place specific initiatives that improve the range of supports for vulnerable Kiwis in their time of need.

Contracts are in place with Whitirea and Careerforce there are two different models of training, one is a Polytech based training for 12 months, the other is workplace-based training.

“This initiative is just another example of the many moves we are making to grow our mental health workforce.

“While the first intake of ten students is already in training, it is our ambition to see this grow to more than a hundred by the end of the programme’s first year.

The training has been enabled by the establishment of the peer workforce fund to provide Level 4 NZ Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Peer Support) training.

Those trained will work in a range of settings in mental health and addiction organisations. This includes in the community supporting people with their mental health, offering respite care and in Emergency Departments.

“The peer workforce fund supports the Government’s ongoing priorities to increase access to mental health and addiction support, grow the mental health and addiction workforce, strengthen focus on prevention and early intervention and improve the effectiveness of mental health and addiction support.”

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