Supporting Whakawhanaungatanga

As the REACH community rehabilitation team at Te Whatu Ora Southern developed their screening processes, they engaged with the Māori Health team. Their key learnings from this were to focus on building the connection with the person. This impacted on several things.

• They prioritise building relationships and engagement. As a community team, they are based in people’s homes, making it easier to connect through people’s environments. They have found that it is often in these conversations, that they find out about people, what matters to them, and how things are going.

• While psychosocial screening is meant to be completed on the first visit, they will sometimes do this on later visits. This ensures they prioritise relationship- building and try and follow the lead of patients and their whanau as to
  when they are ready to engage in these conversations. The team also revisit psychosocial needs with patients and whānau at other key planning and review visits, such as the mid-way review and final review/discharge visit.

• While the screening form is useful for the provider, it can be a barrier for the person with stroke and their whānau. Māori Health advised the REACH team to focus on completing screening through conversation and complete the form later.