About HEART & Ways of Working

The HEART (Healthy Relationships in Tāmaki) Movement is a collective local response to high rates of family violence in Tāmaki.  It is a community-led initiative supported by Te Waipuna Puawai. The vision of HEART is “Tāmaki homes actively grow loving, safe and supportive relationships.” The HEART Movement was launched in February 2012.

The HEART Movement works to prevent family violence and promote healthy relationships using community mobilisation (community members collectively changing social norms). This moves us away from working only on family violence to working to healthy relationships. HEART promotes capability development and collaboration amongst agencies, with the aim of influencing decision making about current approaches to responding to family violence.

At its core HEART is not about the government response to family violence and what agencies must do differently to make change. The HEART Movement is about how the community works collectively to challenge social norms that prevent healthy relationships in whānau, community and society. This is a community mobilisation approach.

One of our Change Agents recently said, “What I love about the HEART Movement is the notion that we have something within us that we can grow to heal ourselves and our families and create wellbeing. We do not need fixing, we do not need an agency to work with us, we can do it ourselves.”

The HEART Movement works to prevent family violence by promoting healthy whānau relationships in shared spaces in the community where people can gather, learn and connect. The HEART Movement is built on the philosophy that strengthening the connections between people and place creates relationships, shared values, cooperation, pride and influence to grow better families and neighbourhoods.

PRINCIPLES

Prior to the development of HEART, community organisations and residents had worked together to develop the Tāmaki Inclusive Engagement Strategy (known as TIES). HEART was one of the first new initiatives to be intentionally developed using the TIES framework. Using TIES, the working group developed principles to guide and focus the initiative. Read our principles below.

Rangatiratanga  / Leadership

We acknowledge our role as leaders and will actively work to grow leadership in the community. Our leadership will be demonstrated through:

• Respectful relating

• Being transparent in our interactions and decision making

• Engaging in open and honest dialogue

• Facing challenges and acknowledging our mistakes

• Acknowledging success and positive change

Whai Wāhitanga / Meaningful Engagement

Together we will engage residents as active participants, agents of change and decision-makers in HEART.  This will be possible through naming, understanding and negotiating the workings of power, and being mindful of managing expectations so as not to exploit goodwill or take unfair advantage.

Akoranga auroa / Cultural Learning

The HEART Movement is an innovative initiative. We will learn our way forward using evaluation and research completed with this community. HEART members will:

• Work to increase their knowledge and skills on family violence and healthy relationships

• Meet the HEART Standards of Practice by participating in HEART training workshops and professional development opportunities, and take responsibility for addressing their development needs

• Work actively to improve individual and organisational practice