Pasifika Mental Health and Addiction Workforce Report

Le Va’s work enhancing the cultural responsiveness of our services and systems is an essential means of reducing ethnic disparities in access, quality and outcomes for services. Supporting the growth and upskilling of the mental health and addiction workforce is a major part of this work.

Le Va and Te Pou published the Pasifika adult mental health and addiction workforce:  2014 survey of vote health funded services, as part of Te Pou’s 2014 More than Numbers project, which has gathered and shared data on the sector’s workforce to help inform workforce planning.

This report presents information on aspects of New Zealand’s adult mental health and addiction workforce relevant to workforce development strategies aimed at increasing cultural responsiveness to Pasifika peoples.

Some findings from the report are:

• Half of all respondents thought there might be future shortages of Pasifika staff for clinical roles and one-third thought the same for Pasifika staff to fill non-clinical roles.
•  Pasifika representation in the workforce was 5%, lower than the adult population and as consumers of services (6% each).
• Pasifika representation in the clinical workforce and in the DHB workforce was very low at 3% each.
• 2%of the total workforce reported to the survey were employed in dedicated Pasifika services (142 FTEs).
• Most survey respondents thought their workforce needed some or a large increase in skills for working with Pasifika peoples.

Download and read the full report below.