MHAPS - Mental Health Advocacy & Peer Support Trust
MHAPS is a free and confidential service for anyone experiencing mental distress and/or an addiction.
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MHAPS services and support are provided within a framework of values that have been developed by our board, staff and clients. You can read more about what these values represent here:
We value :
Empathy
Respect
Best practice
Mutuality
Honesty / Transparency
Accountability
Integrity/ Trust
Our Purpose
We work with a purpose by:
Providing a wide variety of peer led and peer informed services from which a person can choose options that feel comfortable to them.
Offering information, education and referrals to other services to families/whanau to enable them to better support those close to them who experience mental distress or addictions.
Working collaboratively with mental health and addiction service users to provide improved services and support for people who experience mental distress or addictions.
Encouraging and supporting people to live well in the presence or absence of their symptoms by facilitating their recovery within their chosen community.
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We can listen to your story… we value you and what you know…
we can help you make sense of your experiences… support your voice to be heard…
and work with you towards meaningful change.
We are people who having learned from our own experience of mental illness or addictions now provide services and support to assist others as they seek to improve their quality of life.
We do this purposefully by working from our own lived experience and using the values of our organisation. How we got here is our history arising from support groups that became new organisations and on through our experience of earthquakes and changes of addresses and new people joining us.
Our Lived Experience - Our personal lived experience as people with our own history of mental health, alcohol or addictions issues give us great insights when working to help others. You can be confident that whatever you bring, someone here has had a similar journey that helps them to relate to you.
We find that our own personal lived experience and our willingness to share it, when that is appropriate, enables us to readily connect with those we are working with.
People feel ‘heard’ and often for the first time. Mutual lived experience helps build relationship and relationships help to make our services and support more accessible.
The knowledge that you are far from being alone in what you experience, and that, in fact, your own journey may have meaning in helping others can help to bring new meaning into your life.
Our People - Everyone who works at MHAPS and many of our Trust Board has lived experience of mental distress, mental illness and/or substance addictions and of recovery.
Our staff members have a wealth of knowledge, life experience and empathy, all of which supports their work. We have in our own way travelled a similar journey as our peer clients and so can offer a mutual experience and empathy to those who may be struggling with their own distress.
Our work with people can range from anxiety, depression, bipolar and addiction, to struggles as a sole parent with mental health issues, leaving inpatient or residential care, stigma and discrimination issues, particularly in employment, and many other areas of distress and fear.
Our Services - Our services are for anyone 17 and over and living in Canterbury who experience difficulties with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder or any mental health or addictions issue.
All of us at MHAPS have a personal or family experience of mental illness, distress or addictions. Our peer support workers have particular understandings of anxiety and of bipolar disorder. You can be assured of empathy and an accepting attitude from our staff.
Our services are mostly free of charge, however if you would like to make a donation, we would certainly accept appreciate it!
You can phone, text, email or visit to make an appointment to see someone yourself. There is no need for anyone to refer you to MHAPS, unless you ask them to.
Here are some ways we can work with you:
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There are many forms of support available to you if you are struggling with a mental health or addictions issue.
People often make a start with individual support from a peer support worker. This is usually an easy relationship to start because all support workers have their own lived experience of a mental health or addictions issue. Straight away you are likely to feel less alone and better understood.
Depending on your needs talking with or meeting a peer support worker may be a just single contact or one of a series. Our focus is on helping you towards whatever your definition of living well is and often this work involves problem solving and thinking creatively.
Here are a number of ways in which this support can be provided.
Advocacy
‘Advocacy seeks to represent the interest of the powerless client to powerful individuals and social structures.’ ~ (Payne, 1995)
Advocacy is essentially helping another person to obtain something from someone in power.
We can support you to have your voice heard at appointments, inform you of your rights, and help if you want to make a complaint and many other tasks that negatively impact on recovery. They can assist you in situations including ACC, Accommodation referrals, Child Youth and Family, Counselling referrals, Employment issues, Landlords, Lawyer referrals, Medical professionals, Social Services, Tribunals, Work & Income and anyone similar whom you may need support with.
Advocates will only ever act on your issues, with your permission.
All our advocates have had personal experience of mental health services, and can assist you in a great many situations where you may be struggling to speak for yourself. The help you want may be just someone to talk to and plan with or you may need one of our advocates to accompany you to a meeting and even to speak on your behalf.
Peer Support
For people with anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder, peer support offers a truly mutual experience.
Peer support workers who have their own experience of a particular mental health issue and so can be matched with clients who are struggling with the same issue and wanting information or support to help their recovery. Peer support is both a philosophy and a conscious practice that arises from people with their own lived experience providing support and services to others.
MHAPS works with people as individuals using a model known as Intentional Peer Support. Here the emphasis is on ‘being with’ and ‘doing with’ rather than doing for or doing to. In this way the ‘power’ in the relationship is shared.
Our shared experience and role modelling of recovery can assist people to regain hope in their ability to live well despite any mental health issue.
Our peer support workers also use the Te Whare Tapa Wha model of wellbeing that represents a holistic approach to wellbeing and recovery.
Peer support is well accepted and known to be effective.
Addictions Advocacy and Peer Support
An addictions advocate can serve as a ‘navigator’ through the Alcohol and Other Drugs treatment services. We can support you to have your voice heard at appointments, inform you of your rights, and help if you want to make a complaint and many other tasks that negatively impact on recovery.
All our advocates have had personal experience with alcohol and addictions and can assist you in a great many situations where you may be struggling to speak for yourself. As people who have used alcohol and drug services, we will listen and treat you with respect.
Our service is free and confidential and we will only ever act on your issues with your permission.
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MHAPS provides a range of comprehensive programmes plus a series of individual single-subject workshops. These small group events are designed to improve people’s understanding of mental health and addictions. As a person becomes more aware of their own reactions to stress and trauma these programmes assist them to develop effective recovery and wellbeing strategies.
RecoveryWorks
RecoveryWorks is a comprehensive workshop-based programme for people who experience moderate to high levels of anxiety.
The programme has a strong track record in fostering change and assisting people to lead the life they want rather than the life that anxiety leaves them with.
There are limited places on each programme. It can be accessed through an individual meeting with a MHAPS peer support worker, where the emphasis is on helping a person to determine if this is the right programme for them and the right time for them to do it.
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MHAPS provides a range of comprehensive programmes plus a series of individual single-subject workshops. These small group events are designed to improve people’s understanding of mental health and addictions. As a person becomes more aware of their own reactions to stress and trauma these programmes assist them to develop effective recovery and wellbeing strategies.
RecoveryWorks
RecoveryWorks is a comprehensive workshop-based programme for people who experience moderate to high levels of anxiety.
The programme has a strong track record in fostering change and assisting people to lead the life they want rather than the life that anxiety leaves them with.
There are limited places on each programme. It can be accessed through an individual meeting with a MHAPS peer support worker, where the emphasis is on helping a person to determine if this is the right programme for them and the right time for them to do it.
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In the course of our work we gather a wide range of useful knowledge, materials and resources that you’re welcome to share.
We publish a quarterly newsletter containing articles and opinion that we believe might be useful in helping to make sense of your own journey with mental health or addictions issues and importantly towards recovery and wellbeing.
There are very many organisations within New Zealand and overseas that freely share their knowledge and these pages are a place to access some that we recommend.
Links to Helpful Websites
These are trusted organisations in Christchurch, nationally and overseas that provide services and information across a wide range of mental health and general health topics. All links will open on a new tab.
Mental Health Foundation
mentalhealth.org.nzMental Health Education and Resource Centre, Christchurch
mherc.org.nzHealth Navigator
healthnavigator.org.nzMen’s Health
menshealthnz.org.nzWomen’s Centre, Christchurch
womenscentre.co.nzAviva
avivafamilies.org.nzBeyond Blue
beyondbluefoundation.orgDepression NZ
depression.org.nzBalance NZ
balance.org.nzAlcohol and Drug Association NZ (ADANZ)
alcoholdrughelp.org.nzAnxiety UK
anxietyuk.org.ukHealth Unlocked
healthunlocked.comSupporting Families, Christchurch
supportingfamilies.org.nz
“Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.”
Pauline R. Kezer
