New Zealand Police/ Nga Pirihimana O Aotearoa offer a range of Wellness services to our people. Most of these services are western, mono-cultural approaches that are considered ’evidence based’ by the mainstream scientific community. While these approaches are highly valued and meet the needs of many of our people, the ethnic diversity of our workforce requires that we look beyond mainstream psychological approaches to diversify the healing practices that we have on offer. Māori are the first people of the land (tangata whenua) in Aotearoa New Zealand and have well established indigenous holistic healing practices. Historically these practices and the knowledge that underpins them has been rejected by imperial discourse and in turn by conventional mental health and wellbeing providers.

In 2021 NZ Police approached our EAP provider owned by Habit Health to investigate the ability to provide rongoā Māori as part of their EAP services. Rongoā Maōri is defined as the traditional Māori healing system. This ancient lore has been passed down through many generations and can include mirimiri (bodywork), whitiwhiti kōrero (support and advice) and karakia (prayer). Habit Health, led by Reihana Finch (Ngāti Porou) began to establish connections and relationships with community and Iwi (tribe) providers of rongoä who, having developed trust and confidence in their relationship with Reihana agreed to collaborate in a working relationship in order to provide access to rongoä services for NZ Police staff.

This collaborative journey is still a work in progress as we pilot this initiative across several Policing districts. This presentation will cover the need for the diversification of wellness initiatives, especially those that honour indigenous healing practices, describe the collaborative process and present early data insights on the use of rongoä for NZ Police staff.