Social workers are essential frontline professionals

Greeting my name is Numia Korewha. I hail from Ngāpuhi and Aitutaki.

We are here starting mahiat 8:30. Every day is different. Some days we’re in the courts because we have to report to court.

Sometimes we’re in court because some of our rangatahiare arrested.

Sometimes we’re in whānau hui or at whānau homes having hui with whānau.

Most days we’re not finished at 5 o’clock, we are, the mahi goes on after 5pm.

It’s not your 9 to 5. And often there are lots of social workers here after 5 o’clock doing work or out on the road still or with whānau still and so when we’re coming back to the office it can, the times can change.

So in the office, lots of conversations with my teammates or my colleagues, and I guess it’s an opportunity to do a bit of consultation, but just sharing thoughts and lens and different perspectives.

So in our team, we like to talk a lot about what’s going on for our tamariki and whānau so that we can share ideas.

And a lot of our mahi is admin. A lot of it is case noting, a lot of it is court docs, referrals and 20 million other pieces of documents that we have to do which is probably my least favourite part of the mahi, but important part.

Something that I hope that we achieve as a team with each and every one of our tamariki and whānau that we work with is that our tamariki know who they are, know where they come from, they go to where they come from.

They get to sleep in their maraee, they get to climb their maunga, swim in their moana, but not alone, as a whānau so not just our tamariki but their whānau as well knowing.

Because I think with that comes a lot of sense of purpose and sense of identity, sense of belonging, sense of love, which I think ultimately is something that we want to achieve with each and every one of the whānau that we work with.