title: Looking Past the Mess: Māori Homelessness and Mental Health Care

authors: Johnson, Diana

subjects: Homelessness

abstract: Homelessness is a pressing social and health concern that affects Māori disproportionately. This research explores the provision of mental health services to Māori who are homeless. The thesis has two primary aims. First, to document the experiences of Māori homeless people who live with mental health concerns and their relationships with mental health professionals. Second, to document the experiences of mental health professionals and how they interact with, provide care for, and build relationships with Māori Homeless. The skills of, and the difficulties faced by these professionals in provisions of quality of care are also considered. Three male and three female homeless participants were recruited from the Waikato and Auckland regions. All participants had received care from Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and/or District Health Board services (DHB). Participating mental health professionals included one female and five males. Mental health professionals included counsellors, therapists, psychologists, social workers, crisis team coordinator, and a cultural advisor. All participants took part in individual semi-structured interviews conducted in an open and conversational manner.  Key themes for homeless participants included their general life histories of mental illness, mental health service use, relationship with professionals, cultural issues, and concerns that Māori homeless wanted to discuss. Key themes for mental health professionals included their approaches when working with homeless people, relationship building, barriers to working with this group and possible solutions, linking with other professionals or organisations, and issues mental health professionals wanted to discuss. Findings highlight the importance of strong therapeutic relationships between homeless clients and mental health professionals, the need for more joined up (multi-level agency) approach to service delivery, and the importance of Māori ideology in restoring wellbeing and dignity. Findings suggest that the effectiveness of mental health service delivery relies in part on information provided by stakeholders. Information provided by homeless people and mental health professionals informs both service delivery and the ways in which practitioners can best support the needs of homeless people.

text: Looking Past the Mess: Māori Homelessness and Mental Health Care Homelessness is a pressing social and health concern that affects Māori disproportionately. This research explores the provision of mental health services to Māori who are homeless. The thesis has two primary aims. First, to document the experiences of Māori homeless people who live with mental health concerns and their relationships with mental health professionals. Second, to document the experiences of mental health professionals and how they interact with, provide care for, and build relationships with Māori Homeless. The skills of, and the difficulties faced by these professionals in provisions of quality of care are also considered. Three male and three female homeless participants were recruited from the Waikato and Auckland regions. All participants had received care from Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and/or District Health Board services (DHB). Participating mental health professionals included one female and five males. Mental health professionals included counsellors, therapists, psychologists, social workers, crisis team coordinator, and a cultural advisor. All participants took part in individual semi-structured interviews conducted in an open and conversational manner.  Key themes for homeless participants included their general life histories of mental illness, mental health service use, relationship with professionals, cultural issues, and concerns that Māori homeless wanted to discuss. Key themes for mental health professionals included their approaches when working with homeless people, relationship building, barriers to working with this group and possible solutions, linking with other professionals or organisations, and issues mental health professionals wanted to discuss. Findings highlight the importance of strong therapeutic relationships between homeless clients and mental health professionals, the need for more joined up (multi-level agency) approach to service delivery, and the importance of Māori ideology in restoring wellbeing and dignity. Findings suggest that the effectiveness of mental health service delivery relies in part on information provided by stakeholders. Information provided by homeless people and mental health professionals informs both service delivery and the ways in which practitioners can best support the needs of homeless people.

year: 2009

title: Indigenizing outdoor play in New Zealand: A conversation analysis approach

authors: Bateman, Amanda

abstract: This chapter focuses on a single case analysis of one trip to a local bush reserve in New Zealand. The observations included in this chapter begin by exploring the way in which a promise to the Maori God Tane Mahuta is managed by the teachers and children at the beginning of the excursion. The promise made is part of the mundane, everyday activity engaged in by these children and teachers during their weekly visit to the bush reserve, where every child is required to recite a phrase that promises not to hurt the creatures, animals or plants of Tane Mahuta when they are playing in the forest. In the first of the video-recorded episodes, explicit reference to Tane Mahuta is initially oriented through one of the children reciting the promise, unprompted, at the beginning of the recording. The second observation reveals one of the teachers explaining to a child the rules of entering the forest: that you have to ask permission from Tane Mahuta before you enter. When a child does not want to say the promise, he is encouraged to do so collaboratively with the teacher before entering the forest. Only once the child has said the promise does he enter, demonstrating the importance of the verbal commitment and participation in the accountable action of promise-making by the participants prior to entering the forest.

text: Indigenizing outdoor play in New Zealand: A conversation analysis approach This chapter focuses on a single case analysis of one trip to a local bush reserve in New Zealand. The observations included in this chapter begin by exploring the way in which a promise to the Maori God Tane Mahuta is managed by the teachers and children at the beginning of the excursion. The promise made is part of the mundane, everyday activity engaged in by these children and teachers during their weekly visit to the bush reserve, where every child is required to recite a phrase that promises not to hurt the creatures, animals or plants of Tane Mahuta when they are playing in the forest. In the first of the video-recorded episodes, explicit reference to Tane Mahuta is initially oriented through one of the children reciting the promise, unprompted, at the beginning of the recording. The second observation reveals one of the teachers explaining to a child the rules of entering the forest: that you have to ask permission from Tane Mahuta before you enter. When a child does not want to say the promise, he is encouraged to do so collaboratively with the teacher before entering the forest. Only once the child has said the promise does he enter, demonstrating the importance of the verbal commitment and participation in the accountable action of promise-making by the participants prior to entering the forest.

year: 2017

title: "Trigger warnings" are trivially effective at reducing distress

authors: Sanson, Mevagh

abstract: University students are requesting, and many of their professors are issuing, “trigger warnings.” Trigger warnings are a kind of content warning; they give a précis of the material to follow and caution that it may cause a reader or viewer to experience symptoms of distress. The use of these trigger warnings in higher education is controversial: Their purpose is to reduce or eliminate the distress students may otherwise experience in response to “triggering” course content, but no data exist regarding how effective they are at achieving this purpose. Moreover, there is reason to suspect these warnings may backfire and exacerbate the very symptoms they are intended to alleviate. We conducted the first investigation into the effects of trigger warnings: We gave some subjects a trigger warning, but not others, then exposed all of them to negative material, and measured the analogue symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder they experienced. Meta-analyses on data gathered across our six experiments revealed that trigger warnings had trivial effects—regardless of if subjects had seen a trigger warning beforehand, they judged the material to be similarly negative, and reported similar levels of negative affect, intrusions, and avoidance. These results suggest that trigger warnings are neither meaningfully helpful nor harmful, and that students and professors should not rely on them to mitigate students’ distress.

text: "Trigger warnings" are trivially effective at reducing distress University students are requesting, and many of their professors are issuing, “trigger warnings.” Trigger warnings are a kind of content warning; they give a précis of the material to follow and caution that it may cause a reader or viewer to experience symptoms of distress. The use of these trigger warnings in higher education is controversial: Their purpose is to reduce or eliminate the distress students may otherwise experience in response to “triggering” course content, but no data exist regarding how effective they are at achieving this purpose. Moreover, there is reason to suspect these warnings may backfire and exacerbate the very symptoms they are intended to alleviate. We conducted the first investigation into the effects of trigger warnings: We gave some subjects a trigger warning, but not others, then exposed all of them to negative material, and measured the analogue symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder they experienced. Meta-analyses on data gathered across our six experiments revealed that trigger warnings had trivial effects—regardless of if subjects had seen a trigger warning beforehand, they judged the material to be similarly negative, and reported similar levels of negative affect, intrusions, and avoidance. These results suggest that trigger warnings are neither meaningfully helpful nor harmful, and that students and professors should not rely on them to mitigate students’ distress.

year: 2018