Jo Voice

2023 Cohort

Pronouns: she/her

Jo is working collaboratively with the whānau caregiver community in her region to improve their well-being on terms defined by them and hopes to take this work to other communities.

Jo is of European descent, and lives and works in Whanganui, New Zealand. Her career has involved working with children, young people and their families in various settings, mainly with children and their caregivers in foster care.

Jo is currently employed as the Manager of Whanganui Women's Refuge, where she leads a team of advocates who provide support to women and children who are experiencing family violence.

She is a qualified social worker who is passionate about creating equity in support for extended whānau who agree to care for tamariki so they do not need to enter state care. Whānau caregivers receive less training, financial assistance and wellbeing supports than caregivers who provide care for tamariki in state care, despite the critical role they play in keeping tamariki safe. This passion led Jo to the Atlantic Fellowship, where she completed her Master’s in Social Change Leadership to help inform her project to support whānau caregivers.

“I aspire to reduce the number of tamariki Māori in state care in a way that provides for their safety and the well being of their whānau caregivers.”

Social change work

Jo has recently been offered the opportunity to partner with a local NGO that provides advocacy and support for grandparents raising their mokopuna. The hope is to co-design a model of practice, together with the grandparents, that describes an intervention to support whānau caregivers who agree to take care of tamariki so they do not need to enter into state care. Jo hopes this model of practice will allow any NGO to train kaimahi to deliver support to new whānau caregivers and successfully apply for funding to continue to deliver this support in their region.