There is a new pathway for about 3000 counsellors to be accredited to work in publicly funded mental health and addiction roles. Until now, counsellors haven’t been able to work in publicly funded clinical roles, because it’s a self-regulated profession in New Zealand. A new accreditation pathway has addressed this concern. This has raised hopes […]
My heart has beaten almost 2 billion times. I have burned 1378 candles on all my birthday cakes. I have travelled around the sun 53 times – that’s about 50 billion kilometres. The moon has circled around me 706 times. I’ve been on the internet for over 31 years. And today, I am 19,301 days old […]
It’s been two years and three months since I started working to support people through the pandemic. Through this I helped to set up the pillars of the United against Covid-19 campaign, consulted to three Government Departments and many other public and private organisations, delivered so many webinar sessions I’ve lost count, written many Twitter […]
Prepare for surging case numbers over the next days to come. It will take some time for us to come to terms with this changing reality. Already, people are coming forward to be tested in greater numbers in Auckland – this will probably increase the number of identified cases in days to come. What can […]
As we watch and wait it’s important not to be lulled into a false sense of safety in this new uncertainty. The experts tell us that we will likely experience a lag before we detect cases and confirm that there are indeed more omicron cases in the community. So, we need to maintain our safe […]
“Stop telling me to be calm!” And anyway, why’s it so important? You’ve had the experience of people – me included – telling you that being calm is important, right? Often, telling us to be calm produces the exact opposite effect. For example, remember being told, ‘don’t jump on the bed’? What did you do? […]
The Government’s rhetoric about getting vaccinated has hardened. The conversation started with relying on intellectual arguments to convince people that getting vaccinated is the right thing to do through presenting data. It then moved to a persuasion stage, trying to understand the influence of emotions, and working through trusted connections to have conversations designed to […]
We’ve all experienced the superpower. You meet someone and it turns out you both know someone in common. It can happen anywhere, in New Zealand, and even around the world when we travel. And it usually happens pretty early in the conversation too. It’s the social glue that is our superpower It brings us joy, […]
The uncertainty equation is changing. Before, we had the strategy of elimination and the comfort of the original, simple, Alert Level system. You’ve heard it before, and I’ll say it again: Delta is changing all this. We know that secondary stressors – the effects of all that we do to keep the primary threat (Covid-19) […]
With Auckland at Level 3 and Covid-19 cases still in the community, our behaviour is more important than ever in staying on top of the spread of the virus. What we choose to do *does* make a difference. What YOU do makes a difference If you hate lockdowns and you want to have a glorious […]