PeerZone and Action Station are preparing the Wellbeing Manifesto for Aotearoa New Zealand. We first began to discuss it at PeerZone’s Peer-led Paradigm Shift seminar last November and have been refining it in consultation with different stakeholders since then. The manifesto is calling for open access to a broad range of services for people with mental distress and addiction. To achieve this the government needs to commit itself to a set of wellbeing priorities and to transform the way it funds and delivers services.
In short, we need to transition from Big Psychiatry (where psychiatry sits at the hub, shapes the world view and uses most of the resources) to Big Community (where sectors and communities sit at the hub, share their world views and jointly allocate resources).
The Wellbeing Manifesto will be released on 16 May for people to sign up to. PeerZone and Action Station will present the manifesto and signatures to the Government Mental Health Inquiry on Mental Health and Addiction in the first week of August.
Be on the look out put your name to the biggest transformation in mental health and addiction we have seen in our lifetimes.