Monthly Archive for August, 2005

August 2005 – Tracey Richardson

Published by Tracey Richardson on August 20, 2005 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

During July I had a very rare treat – a HOLIDAY! Yahhhhh. I took my husband and 4 children to Fiji for 10 days on a very long overdue break – we have not had a holiday together for 7 years. Now I have a wee bit of a confession here – I found going on holiday incredibly hard. After so long of fizzing around and being incredibly busy, the idea of sitting still and doing nothing was abhorrent so needless to say for the first 3 days I was a nightmare as I fought my urge to do something. Sad huh… Ok confession number 2 – the holiday wasn’t all holiday – I did have work to do – I had been invited to attend the Avanti Australasian conference there as Breath4Cf is the charity that they support and I was to give a speech, highlight the programmes they had supported in the past year and outline the next year of concepts. Still the aspect of the work/holiday was not difficult and we finally spent many an hour by the pool and on the hammock relaxing. That’s the reason why there are not many photos this month – but I had to include at least one of me on the hammock. Think your self lucky – it could have been one of me at the beach in my togs. Argh!

The Band together campaign wrapped up and we spent many days receiving returned bands back into stock and counting and banking money (always the best part of the job). Early estimates show that we have sold in the vicinity of 45,000 bands which are fantastic. This should translate into about $90,000 profit give or take a dollar or two. So I guess you could say another successful idea and campaign done. Bring on the next one.

What’s the next one? The summer season is looming and with it brings the athletic events. We have a celebrity charity Duathlon here in Hawkes Bay in October we are planning for and already our planning has started for Ironman next year.

The other BIG news is that finally I have taken the plunge and hired someone to work with me to help me with the myriad of roles and work I do. I meet and recruited Reena at the London Marathon in April when I was there. She is helping with Breath4Cf, FundraiseOnline and my own work also. AWESOME, maybe I can start to work normal hours for a change.

August 2005 – Stephen Denekamp

Published by Stephen Denekamp on August 20, 2005 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Another fun packed month as the year speeds along. There are a couple of project around this place at the moment. We’ve been working with some cool employees from Vodafone towards creating an operations manual for Rainbow Youth. As we are a youth organisation with members changing each year, having one place where all our policies and procedures can be easily referred to, is going to make a HUGE difference to the professionalism of our organisation. This is just another way in which the World of Difference program is making, well, a world of difference to us!

The other main project underway is the creation of a database that can keep track of all our contacts/organisations/workshops – the lot. This is being designed by a final year student at MIT (Manukau Institute of Technology) doing his project for the Bachelor in Information Systems. Once completed, this will make it a lot easier to find details and keep track of our growth from year to year. Currently we use a combination of database, paper systems and Word files!

As you can see there a quite a lot of individuals and organisations that lend their support to the work we do with young people – something that is SO encouraging to us. Another example is the Auckland Theatre Company. They generously donated us 25 tickets to the ‘Up For Grabs’ production showing at the Maidment Theatre. This was a wonderful opportunity to thank some of our most involved volunteers for the many hours they put in to making a difference to Rainbow Youth, and the many organisations and young people we work with.

In the larger queer community, there has been the launch of a new queer news program – The Outhouse – which is excellent to see. I got to meet some of the people involved this month when they came to the Rainbow Youth centre to film MP Tim Barnett for an upcoming episode. Again it’s excellent to have the Centre open and available for groups in the community.

As far as my actually work in schools: this month we have done around 20 workshops, which is just awesome. One of these was an all day workshop to students at the University of Auckland training to be youth workers. This was my first time running a class for an entire day. I had a lot of fun putting it together and things went really well – other than my voice almost giving up on me by the end . It was good to put into practice all the things I’ve learned throughout this year.

I continue to be involved in the Out@AUT group. Working full time at Rainbow Youth means that there Is the time to put towards helping new groups set up and being that connection between different groups around Auckland, to keep things going. The group is doing really well and recently elected their Student Representative and Secretaries. Good on them!

To finish off with; i.e., the new Rainbow Youth group, had it’s third meeting. This group provides a more formal structure than many of our others, which makes it an excellent group for new members to get involved in. It’s basically a video and discussion group and this month the topic was safer sex. Nick from Auckland Sexual Health (ASH) came in and did a workshop around safer sex and STI’s. Then Lesley brought out her now infamous dental dam game, which, as you can see by the photos, provided loads of laughter for all involved. It’s important that all organisations working with young people actively promote safer sex and decision-making. It’s something that Rainbow Youth is passionate about, especially as young queer youth can feel left out of school health programs in some schools that are not inclusive of different sexualities and genders. Again this highlights the need for greater education in schools in terms of working with queer youth. The learning point here is simply to be proactive at being inclusive – the same way that we should around ethnicity, religion and disability. It’s the wellbeing of our Rangatahi, they are our future and ALL deserve the best chance at life.

“…each voice enriches us and ennobles us, and each voice lost diminishes us…” – Sheridan, Babylon 5

August 2005 – Joanne Thorne

Published by Joanne Thorne on August 20, 2005 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Things have really stepped up a notch this month as the project starts to come together for a really good season.

Earlier this month two keen helpers and myself set out on an egg lift in the Waitotara Valley. After a big feed at the hut we headed out into the darkness and I’m pleased to report that we came home with a healthy, fertile egg, the first of the season. The egg was taken straight to Rainbow Springs to be incubated and will be given the very best care. Reports of the eggs development so far are all positive and we are all looking forward to meeting a healthy chick in a few months time. This will be an extremely special chick as so much time and effort has gone into monitoring these birds with disappointing results to date.
We also checked a second bird that I suspected was nesting, however, as in previous seasons, it turned out to be just a burrow. I do wonder what these birds are up to sometimes!!

I have also spent time out kiwi catching with our kiwi contractor and his kiwi dog ‘Murphy’. After a few near misses we have caught one more adult male, bringing the total number of birds I am monitoring to 6.
On one of these nights out catching, to our surprise, a kiwi chick was found! Because he was under the ‘predator proof’ weight he was taken out of the bush to Massey University where wildlife vets can provide top-notch care and make sure he is healthy. The exciting news is that once he is declared disease free he will be coming to Bushy Park to stay until he reaches a release weight of 1200g. At this time he will be released back into the bush where he was found. His arrival is a surprise to everyone, however we are glad to be able to provide him with a safe temporary home. Preparations are underway as we anxiously await his arrival in early September.

On the predator eradication front, our final poison drop has now been completed. Weather conditions for the drops have been fantastic and we are confident that Bushy Park is now largely pest free. Monitoring over the next 6 months will confirm this.

I look forward to bringing you news and photos of our new arrival next month! Until then, I’m off out to the Waitotara Valley to try and suss out these mysterious kiwi!

August 2005 – Diana Hickey

Published by Diane Sharp on August 20, 2005 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Well… true to style August has continued with the level of intensity as the previous months….I’ve got the bug and am still as excited and inspired by the work I do as the first day I began.

Firstly, I finally met the hospitals art specialist, Marcy Cragie, who gave me a great introduction to the art hanging on these walls and the history of the collection itself, which is formidable to say least. Typically we both ran out of time before actually getting on the wards to view all the work, but that’s a treat I savour for another day.

Also early in the month we had the Koru Care Auction, to raise funds for children going on the trip of a lifetime to the U.S. This was really great fun. My partner had donated some aerial billboard advertising as an auction piece so I also had the rare good fortune to sit back for an evening and enjoy the night as a guest instead of being behind the scenes. The auction raised over $80,000 and will send 24 kids and a medical team to Disney land for the trip of a lifetime!

The Psycho-Oncology conference “Coping with Success” began the following week here at Christchurch Hospital. The range of presenters was extensive and included survivors of cancer, psychologists, oncologists, and a community play specialists from the North Island and me! It was a great chance to share my research and service with a wider audience of Christchurch Hospital, many of whom deal with adult cancer. There was great curiosity from this group and I’m inspired to offer art kits available in the adult waiting rooms now. Another outcome of this conference was to later share my work with the Radiologists who work with both adults and children. They had some great questions which once again got me thinking about the extended benefits of art therapy in this patient population.

Siblings camp planning has been continuing quietly, with the shared care nurse for CHOC, the Child Cancer Foundation family support person, one of the play specialists and I slowly ironing out the finer details. The day has been set for the 23rd of September and promises to be a treat, maybe informative and even inspiring for the young brothers and sisters of kids with Cancer.

Towards the end of the month the CTAA conference was a colourful event with talented and experienced art therapists and creative people working in the caring professions. I chose to do two workshops on palliative care which were both very different approaches to working with people. While I was in Auckland I also had the opportunity to meet with some of the members of the Psychiatric Liaison team at Starship. This was a really great chance to share some of the work I’ve been doing with the team there. It seems that it was well received as they are now looking at the possibility of using art therapy in the development of a new psycho-oncology care program for children! Finally on the following Monday, I had a meeting with Jim Barclay, CEO of the Child Cancer Foundation, Rosemarie Thomas, the National Division family support liaison, Maureen Woodcock, Co-Director of the MA in Arts Therapy at Whitecliffe, Jane Skeen, Senior Oncologist at Starship and beyond of course and Jillian Donnachie of Vodafone NZ Foundation fame. If somebody had told me that I’d be sitting around a table with these characters 12 months ago, I would have cracked up laughing!! It was a great opportunity to look at what’s happened so far this year, and a real relief to hear positive and enthusiastic feedback about the art therapy service at CHOC to date. Yay!

August 2005 – Debbie Fewtrell

Published by Dr. Debbie Fewtrell on August 20, 2005 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

The overriding motive of my “world of difference” year is to increase public and professional awareness of the improvement possibilities offered to many ASD kids with biomedical treatment. To my satisfaction I feel I’m meeting my objectives more successfully than I had originally anticipated.

The Annual Autism NZ Conference in Auckland proved a fantastic opportunity to provide parents and professionals with a good grasp of the issues. Despite being allocated three hours to lecture I still ran short of time!

During the first session I took the audience on a “whistle-stop tour” of biomedical therapies worldwide. The second session covered the aspects NZ parents could do themselves with practical advice for dietary intervention and safe nutritional therapies.  I’ve heard via the grapevine already of one child who has improved enormously with diary elimination alone. Oh – if only there was sufficient awareness that every ASD child was given the information to try some of the simpler and often very effective interventions.

I’m very grateful to the two mothers of ASD kids I treat who agreed to talk about their experiences and success with biomedical intervention. Their words proved a really powerful message to parents. Their personal stories pulled at my heartstrings so much I found it difficult to continue lecturing without a tremble in my voice. One of the children has done so well his mum is about to start him at the local primary school without a teacher aide. She hasn’t needed to tell the school he ever had a diagnosis of Autism!

Medical Practitioner Training Conference- Auckland – Feb 2006
The most exciting news of the month has to be that I have managed to attract Dr Bill Walsh from the Pfeiffer Research Centre, Chicago to lecture at the doctor training conference I’m organizing with the Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in February. He, along with me and three doctors from Australia who specialise in this area, will bombard the attendees with enough knowledge that they can start on the journey of treating ASD in their own practices. Any interested doctors can contact sally@acnem.org for details.

Dr Walsh is the Pfeiffer chief researcher where they have studied over 3000 children with ASD. They are world leaders in the field of metal metabolism issues and behaviour disorders – see www.hriptc.org .  We are so privileged to have him visit our shores. I’m hoping to run a parents workshop whilst he’s here too- watch this space!

On a more local level, I met with John Carter, our Northland MP, sporting his blue rosette prior to the election. I thought it may be an inroad into addressing these issues on a governmental level. With the rates of ASD skyrocketing worldwide the long term costs to the nation will be huge unless more is done to help these children. He was very interested in my work on a local and national level although I think he thought I was a bit mad taking on such a mission! Maybe he’s right!

What I do know is that I have never felt so satisfied in my medical career than now witnessing the change that can occur with ASD children given the chance. After the conference I hope there will be a whole army of us in NZ sharing this sense of  fulfillment.