Katarina Matehaere

Provide care at Oranga Tamariki - Ministry for Children, Family Homes across the wider Manawatu-Whanganui region as appointed, maintaining in all respects a safe, caring, responsible, and supportive family environment in the family home for children and young persons in care. Shift length varies between 4 and 9 days at a time. Shift duties include, but are not limited to:

• Build and maintain quick rapport with children and young people placed in care
• Keep an open line of communication open between management and fellow team members.
• Assist children and young people with activity plans, especially for weekends and holidays
• Administer medication
• Support children and young people with challenging behaviours to complete daily routines and tasks
• Assist Social worker in supporting children and young people to attend dental and medical appointments, as well as transport to and from school, extra curricular activities and family access
• Maintain the running of the home, including cleaning duties as well as meal planning and following a budget for groceries and household needs

In-home caregiver for a kaupapa Māori not-for-profit organisation supporting children and young people in state care, in various Oranga Tamariki Ministry for Children homes across the Wellington region. Shift length varied between 48 and 100+ hours per week, depending on the support needed.

Duties included:

• supporting children and young people with challenging behaviour
• provide detailed and succinct notes and reports to line manager on a daily basis
• managed the day-to-day running of the home within a team, including cleaning, shopping, school pick-up and drop-offs, as well as supporting social workers by attending medical appointments, transporting, and supervising family access. This particular role opened up an opportunity to be a team leader, managing staff and rosters, as well as provide support to management with reports for a period of time before returning to my role as a full-time in-home caregiver.

Upon my return to New Zealand, I worked for LifePlus, an agency supplying support workers to a range of service providers under Auckland District Health Boards. Some of the services I was able to offer were:

• Daily care for those in supported residences, assisting individuals with day-to-day routines and schedules
• Supporting new mothers needing post-natal care in their homes, mainly caring for their baby through the night
• Caring for babies through the night in a maternal mental-health respite house, Te Awhi Rito

Although my time here was short, it definitely laid the foundation for pursuing a career in the social services sector.