Addictions Services Roles – Addiction Support, Peer Support, Addiction Practitioner

Our Whānau Career Story 

Manuka Matthews, Addictions Practitioner

Where do I work and what do I do? 

I am an Addictions Practitioner working in the community of Waitara.

The service is funded through the Ministry of Health to work differently with Acute Drug Harm in the community.

I awhi, or support people holistically to help them improve their health and wellbeing, based on cultural values and beliefs.

‘Manaakitanga’, ‘tika’ the right way, ‘pono’ honest, sincere, and ‘aroha’ compassion, empathy. ‘Whanaungatanga’, building relationship, ‘Whakapapa’, connections – getting to know each other, promoting a sense of belonging, trust in themselves.

It’s all about promoting people towards positive change, to step out of their comfort zone, to feel the fear, do it anyway, to change their perception of their world.

The ultimate goal is “Rangatiratanga” strategies of self-empowerment to take an active part in their lives, take responsibility for decision making, self-healing and ultimately, independence.

What was my career pathway to get here (and what led me to this?) 

I grew up as one of 10 siblings in my whānau – I was number 4.

Growing up I was told I had a “short wick” – looking back I was very emotional, sensitive with strong values and beliefs, if I felt my mana was being trampled I would react in a way, which wasn’t good for me or anyone else.

I was also always “the watcher” – I used to watch everything that was going on around me and take it all in, processing outcomes.

I went through school and then onto work – doing a lot of different physical trade jobs – welding, building, fixing, fibreglass – building up my skills.

I look back now and can see that my childhood of watching paid off big time in most areas of life especially where I needed to be what I term as a good learner. At mahi I would usually watch and pickup on the good teachers, eg. becoming the top industrial spray painter on sight. Most people had something to offer, however I found that once I built relationships through being the cheeky but helpful one or whatever, the older guys would teach the finer points of the mahi, taking the time to clean their gear ‘meticulous’ and set themselves up for the next day, achieving the top finishes. The younger guys would focus more on speed and often their gear would let them down through lack of proper maintenance and care, rip shit or bust. Taking the best out of everyone’s styles made it easy to excel.

I quickly realised I had to become “the expert” or really good at stuff to be competitive in this world especially being a young “Mori male” in the 70’s and 80’s. I started my own business doing exceptional for 20 years and I made a lot of money!

I built a good skill base – I needed people to do the work and do it well – to get the big projects. Step by step I learnt to do all the simple things – I followed available guidelines and set up a limited liability company.

I might have been really wealthy – but wasn’t that happy – I had no time to myself and when I did, I got into alcohol and drugs to relax and have fun.

I could see what was happening to me and people around me. It wasn’t healthy, and I realised the money wasn’t everything, it was good, but I needed to change my lifestyle. I realised that most of the people who had mega money were focused on money and could be quite ruthless, not even close to where I wanted to be.

I took a huge leap and closed my business much to the disgust of my wife and friends. I looked for jobs but couldn’t find what I wanted to do. So, wanting to help people change, me included. Again, the skills learned from childhood came into focus, I decided to do something different and tried a diploma in social work.

While training, I challenged myself hugely as I wasn’t academic and had to become the good learner and learn about the processes, how to skim read and how to write academic, was an awesome learning phase.

My last placement was in a Māori kaupapa prison rehab unit in the community. It ended up being the best thing I’d ever done.

I decided to do the 3-month rehab programme myself, alongside the prisoners, as one of the participants. The prisoners shared a lot, trusted me and it went really well. I was offered a role as the coach therapist, working with Te Ihi Tu, a Māori kaupapa organisation in Taranaki. We had a month between programmes, which was used for training from experts in the fields of human behaviour, change, growth and development, basically how people work cause and effect, which for me was totally awesome. It felt like I had finally found my fit in the world

When that programme ended, I was offered a position at the Taranaki District Health Board. I worked at the Taranaki Base Hospital for 10 years. Part of my contract with the DHB was to work towards my degree as an addictions practitioner, this was 3 years full time, I was able to do this over 5 years doing block courses and working full time. Working as an addictions practitioner and studying was very hard to fit the study and work balance.

Actually the mahi at the hospital was helping massively with my course, I was able to present to classes real experiences related to course content. After a decade they offered me the role I have now – working in the Waitara community.

This is my third year here now. This works really well as I can respond to my people’s need, from therapy at the office to Community based therapy, group activities – it is totally flexible – we might go for a walk, or a bike-ride or fishing or a coffee! I’ve got the funding and resources to enable this to become a reality, van, mountain bikes, a mobile BBQ, and fishing rods. It’s all about getting out of their comfort zone and integrating with the wider community.

So, working with people, they often don’t realise how hard they’ve been working! Moving on a scale of 1 to 10 – from just surviving, feelings of helpless, hopelessness, being trapped, moving up towards 10, to awesome and future focused.

My “Why” for doing the job and making a difference for Māori 

Growing up in a low decile area – we thought we were “all good”, in comparison with others we weren’t all good. It was tough!

We were aware of being poor – but we always had a clean house and people would get a feed at our house. Mum and Dad were people focused, very supportive and hard workers, that’s where I get it from.

My why with my mahi? I wanted to help people build the skills, towards self-responsibility to building a better life, take advantage of opportunities, and the ability to provide for themselves and their whanau /family.

When it comes down to it, it’s all about empowering people, with the skills of self- development, the ability to make informed decisions, play an active role in their future, providing for themselves their whanau and integrating with their community.