Adolescent health hui attendance thrills organisers
Sarah Watson, Isaac Whitford and Moana Connor found the hui worthwhile. Photo: Neil Wilson.
Health professionals and others in social support professions took their skills and knowledge to Golden Bay High School last week.
The students for whom the Adolescent Health Hui was run responded enthusiastically and everyone reported very positive outcomes.
The Adolescent Health Hui was a Be Well initiative, co-ordinated by Wendy Earle of Heartlands. It called on the expertise of social workers, community workers, counsellors, nurses and other health workers to provide accessible information on all aspects of health to young people from the ages of 13 to 18 in a completely supportive and non-threatening context.
Students could choose to attend workshops with titles like “What Does a Healthy Relationship Look Like?” or “What’s Happening To Me – Emotional Well-Being”. Another one was called “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll for Boys”. Some workshops were segregated and others were open to all. No one was compelled to attend, but the numbers who chose to take part showed organisers that they were providing something that the students wanted and needed.
Isaac Whitford, Sarah Watson and Moana Connor all said that they had found the day very positive and worthwhile.
“It was cool. The things we learned about alcohol were useful,” said Moana.
Sarah liked the fact that the resource people were all from our community.
“I also liked it that we had a choice about what we learned. I picked up some good resources,” she said. “It was nice that some of the presenters were close to our age.”
Isaac thought that the final session was the most useful. It involved the young people assembling a list of all the resources immediately available to them in their quest to remain healthy. The session also addressed the question: “What can we do to help ourselves and our mates?”
“I’m new here, so that session was really useful,” said Isaac.
Co-ordinator Wendy Earle said that the organising group had been “blown away with the the positive support from the school.”
“Mr File the principal let us run the hui, which must have been a fairly big disruption to the day,” said Wendy. “And the key members of his staff were tremendously supportive and helpful. HEALTH HUI p2
Be Well is all about keeping people healthy through knowledge and skills. Once people have the information, they can make the sorts of choices that make them healthy. Teenagers are an identifiable group with specific needs so we aimed a hui at them. We’ve done one for older people and another one for women. Next we’ll do a men’s health hui.”
Wendy said that the best part of the day for her was seeing the positive responses of the young people taking part.
“They didn’t just sit there like blocks of concrete. They seemed eager to take part and they seemed to be getting a lot out of the day. We’ve had very positive feedback from our presenters, too.”
Neil Wilson
