This article was first published in Touchstone in November 2017.
The Methodist Church has a proud history in New Zealand working to combat poverty, unemployment, and poor housing. Today missions continues to focus on social justice and the most vulnerable and marginalised people in our society, however the services provided now are significantly different. While there are no longer orphanages, the missions provide services to children in care and their caregivers. There are also a wide range of services responding to the housing crisis.
Lifewise offers an intensive in-home parenting service as an alternative to foster care. This is a fundamental shift from removing children from their families to keep them safe to building the capability of parents/whānau to provide safe and nurturing care for their children in their own homes. This unique service enables more sibling groups to stay together and parents become more skilled so that subsequent children and generations thrive.
Housing is a basic human need and every person deserves a safe and healthy place to live. Lifewise works with people experiencing chronic homelessness and includes people with a lived experience of homelessness at all levels which ensures the voice of the “rough sleeper” community is heard and incorporated. The service recognises it is easier for people to address issues like mental health and substance abuse, once they are housed. Therefore the priority is to provide appropriate housing and then immediately provide wrap around services. This also represents a shift as previously the only way into housing was to get treatment first.
Lifewise’s Merge Café used to be a soup kitchen. However a growing body of evidence showed that the soup kitchen was maintaining rather than solving the issue of homelessness. The aim to end homelessness remains and Merge Café provides an environment for people to enjoy a meal together and connects people with wrap around services that provide pathways out of homelessness.
As a registered community housing provider, the Christchurch Methodist Mission is able to access the Government's Income Related Rent Subsidy. Tenants only pay approximately 25% of their income on rent with the Government making up the difference between that and market-rent. This enables young families & older people who are priced out of the rental market to secure a warm affordable home. The Mission’s Housing Whānau Support Worker provides support to help families sustain their tenancies and also organises a range of social and community events to create a sense of belonging and community which reduces social isolation.
Methodist City Action provides the only shower service in Hamilton for people who are homeless. The Mission is co-located with the Hamilton Methodist Church and uses the showers in the premises they share. The Mission offers fresh towels, soap, razor and other toiletries to their clients.
The Missions are working with new issues in society like family breakdown, anxiety in children and young people, which has increased sharply over the last few years. And New Zealand is facing a P epidemic, which is often associated with gangs, and is also said to be the number one cause of family breakdown and the biggest reason for parents losing custody of their children.
Wesley Community Action recently won an award for the P-Pull initiative – a service to help addicts get through the withdrawal period and quit the habit. The award was for innovation in work practices that contribute to improving workplace wellbeing, best practice and staff engagement. Wesley Community Action is also a leader in working with gangs.
The mission in Palmerston North offer a range of family/whānau education programmes including anger management skills; managing anxiety; grief, loss and change; parenting through separation; managing everyday challenges like shyness, bulling, fear of failure etc.; social work; advocacy, counselling service and a food bank.
The work of the missions is innovative responding to the issues society is facing as they continue to work for a more just society. If you would like to support the work of the missions, please contact me or your local mission.
Carol Barron, Methodist Alliance National Coordinator, Carol@MethodistAlliance.org.nz
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