Our mission statement is “Weave a holistic pathway of wellness through employment”. But what does holistic mean? Simply put, we treat every person as a whole person not as a collection of individual parts. To do this we use a model called Te Whare Tapa Whā
What to expect when you come into see us
Te Whare Tapa Whā was developed in 1984 by Sir Mason Durie a leading Māori health advocate. There are four parts that make up health and wellbeing and these are represented by the walls of the wharenui/meeting house.
With all these aspects balanced then we thrive. If one or more of these is out of balance we struggle with wellbeing.
The Process
Each person who comes in completes a registration form and has an initial interview where together we create your indivdualised employment plan. This plan considers your previous experience, what you want to do work wise and identifies strategies to make this happen.
You will then meet regularly with your employment specialist to apply for jobs, practice interview skills, attend training and implement the strategies for success from your plan.
Once employment has been secured we make a new plan together on how to support you when you are working and continue to meet to discuss your job and work life balance regularly as well.
Parts of the Wharenui
Whenua (place where you stand)
Taha wairua (spiritual health)
Taha tinana (physical health)
Taha hinengaro (mental health)
Taha whanau (family health)
Employment Support Practice Guidlines
As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), New Zealand is committed under Article 27 to “recognise the rights of persons with disabilities to work, on an equal basis with others.” To honour this, it made sense to co-design a set of Employment Support Practice Guidelines, with people and organisations who believe that disabled people deserve and require better access to jobs and careers of their choice. (Employment Support Practice Guidelines/How to support people to get the job they want, NZDNS 2018)
The eight Practise Guidelines of Supported Employment which Work Opportunities have embraced are:
1. Any disabled person who wants to work has the opportunities to receive skilled support to work.
2. The disabled person’s goal and aspirations drives the uptake of employment support.
3. People and agencies involved in a disabled person’s life are encouraged to understand the importance of work as an achievable outcome.
4. Disabled people experience a personalized service. This means getting individually tailored, ongoing employment support to secure and maintain a job employment.
5. Employers know about, and have confidence in employment support services, the benefits of employing disabled people and the importance of building natural supports in the workplace.
6. Providers of employment support have the knowledge to support each disabled person to get a job and develop a career of the choice.
7. Providers of employment support services direct and lead their organisation in ways that promote these employment support practices in partnership with disabled people.
8. Providers of employment support services measure how good they are at getting people into work and strive to continually improve their employment service to get disabled people, to employers and funders.
Making the step into employment can be exciting, stressful and very rewarding. Work Opportunities is here to make sure that every step of the journey is focused on affirming you as a person and respects your rights so that you can live your true and authentic life.
View our client hand book