CEO Message April 2024
Kia ora,
This edition of snippets will be arriving to you at the end of the Easter long weekend. Whether you went away for the weekend or stayed at home, I hope you’ve enjoyed the extra few days off and treated yourself to a hot cross bun and easter egg (or two)!
March was a very busy, but rewarding month for our organisation. We kicked things off with Foster Care Awareness Week, which is always a highlight of the year for us. It was wonderful to see caregivers and their whānau come together at events all around the country to be recognised for their mahi and enjoy a fun activity or moment of relaxation. You can find out more about the events here.
Of course, during Foster Care Awareness Week we also hosted our Excellence in Foster Care Awards where we recognised 13 amazing caregivers/cargiving couples at an award ceremony at Government House in Wellington. As always, I was completely blown away and humbled by our recipients. Their dedication, selflessness, and aroha define what it means to be an extraordinary caregiver, and I feel blessed to have them as part of our caregiving community. If you would like to read the stories of this year’s recipients, click here.
In March we also released our Care and Protection White Paper. We have been collaboratively working on this with other agencies for some time now, so it was an exciting step to be able to present it to the Children’s Minister, Hon Karen Chhour, as well as release it to the public. The White Paper follows on from our Care and Protection Green Paper which we released last year to generate discussions and gather feedback on the performance of New Zealand’s Care and Protection system. The White Paper has collated the feedback we received and puts forward our collective, high-level vision for the Care and Protection System in Aotearoa with the hope that it will form part of government policy. To read the White Paper, click here.
Looking forward to this month, we are releasing our annual members survey to better understand how we can provide the best service for you, our caregivers. By completing the survey you go in the draw to win one of ten $200 grocery vouchers!
With daylight saving finishing this weekend and the cold weather beginning to creep back in, I hope you are all keeping well and remembering to look after yourselves.
Mā te wā (Bye, for now, see you later).
