Harper loves surfing, fishing, swimming, outdoor adventures, cooking, playing with friends and whanau and most importantly ... DJing. Meet DJ Harpz. Harper is 11 years old and lives with older sister Mia, Mum Trish, Dad Dion and Dog Tui on the Kapiti Coast. Harper was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) at 4 years old, and in 2021 Harper lost the ability to walk. DJ Harpz has a five-year plan to become a world-class professional DJ. In late 2021, Harper began DJ

Brodie is an innovative and creative 20-year-old from rural Christchurch who has autism and anxiety. He attends special needs school three days a week and the YMCA 4C Centre once a week. The 4C Centre has a range of physical and digital tools such as 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, computers as well as a recording studio set up for video, music, podcasting and streaming. When at home and in the school holidays, Brodie spends time doing projects as his days at school

13-year-old Kobe’s happy place is the ocean. He lives close to the beach in Gisborne and loves to swim, boogie board and surf with his family – Mum, Dad, and younger sister and brother. Kobe is a healthy young man with Down Syndrome. Being in and by the ocean is a place where Kobe’s anxiety levels are reduced, and he feels a sense of calm. No matter the season, Kobe will be in the ocean! He is very interested in surfing – and the rest of his family can all surf. Kobe can catc

At Manawanui, we always try to make things easy – ko te whainga matua, me ngawari. Making things easy for our customers is really close to our hearts, but we know it’s not always plain sailing being an employer. We recognised an Employer Protection Package would make things easy if things don’t go to plan with employees. We also believe the freedom to choose the people you want to work with is a really important part of self-direction, but it brings the responsibilities that

Introducing Jeanie, a musician and music teacher who, after losing her sight, has lost the ability to read print music. Jeanie, when she was partially sighted, studied and gained a Bachelor of Music majoring in theory and arranging and following this, completed a Diploma of Teaching. Since then, music arranging played a large part in Jeanie’s life, she arranged many popular tunes for groups of string students and also led a youth band and a junior music mentoring program at h

Stephon is a caring and humble man with a beautiful 14-month-old baby daughter. He suffers from a rare bone disease – Multiple Hereditary Exostoses, resulting in 35 surgeries. His love for his daughter, music and helping others keep Stephon going. Stephon experiences high levels of pain daily and occasional limited mobility. Multiple Hereditary Exostoses means Stephon has different sized bony growths as well as a buckled arm and bowed legs. This makes it both painful and frus

Introducing our Community Relations Advisor Patch Waters, who makes the transition to IF easy!  Every day Manawanui staff strive to live our values, “We deliver delight” “People are really important to us”, “We challenge ourselves to go beyond” and “We make it easy”.  The introduction of the new role of Community Relations Advisor further enhances those values for our newest customers.   Patcharee (Patch) Waters has been with Manawanui for just over 2 years, starting as a Cus

Kaupapa (Project Purpose): To strengthen Tainui Service Providers in the Māori Disability Sector through whanaungatanga, the sharing of information and working collaboratively together, to achieve the best outcome possible for whanau. In May, members of the Manawanui Relationships team were invited to present to the Waikato Māori Disability Network Hui. The network consists of representatives from the various health services that support the wider Waikato/Bay of Plenty area s

Simon presents at a Manawanui Meets community meeting Simon Anderson started life at Manawanui as an IT Project Manager, and then a move to Marketing Team Manager. But this role has rapidly expanded, and he recently assumed additional responsibility for Business Development, with both the Relationships team and the Projects team reporting to him. However, Simon is probably most famous for his weekly appearances on the Manawanui Facebook Livestreams, where literally hundreds o

Introducing Noah Penny, the roller-skater and skier extraordinaire. Noah has severe autism, dyspraxia, epilepsy and is non-verbal – however he does not let this stop him!With amazing balance and a determined attitude, Noah has previously taken part in the Special Olympics. His passion is skiing, and he loves the sense of freedom it gives him. The season is very short, with only 6 Special Olympic training days at SnowPlanet each year as well as ‘Snow Camp’ - a preparation week

Rebecca McPhail on left, Sharla King Centre and Simon Anderson on right Introducing the Manawanui Projects Team I recently sat down with Simon Anderson who heads the Project Team at Manawanui – a team tasked with looking at ways Manawanui can improve their service offering to both current and new customers. Their mandate covers everything from products and services, through to Pilot projects with new customer bases who could benefit from Manawanui services. It also includes p

Manawanui is passionate about making a difference in the lives of disabled people, through providing the resources to control their own funding and hiring of who supports them. But what about older people – who also require home support and the ability to manage their funding? Manawanui has been running a long-term trial with The Bay of Plenty District Health Board and a Papamoa retirement village to assess how older people either living at home or in a retirement village set

Image: Maude Maxwell second from left Opotiki born and bred, Maude Maxwell is a Relationship Manager at Manawanui. Her role is to support the disability referral community of NASCs, DHBs and conditions organisations, and help them understand that various options available to those organisations customers.Maude spends her time running community workshops, training sessions, and fielding calls from assessors and counsellors unsure of the best approach for a customer. Maude is a

As we eagerly await the announcement of the winners of Fund for Good, we are excited to share some of the inspirational milestones that Manawanui Fund for Good previous recipient Emma is achieving. Emma is an extremely hard worker who loves to be outdoors enjoying life with her sisters and was a Fund for Good winner back in 2021. Supported by parents Cindy and Nathan and sisters Lily-Anne and Chloe, Emma has been working tirelessly on her daily therapy programme to improve he

Alex is a happy and outgoing 9-year-old boy with Angelman Syndrome which means he is unable to walk long distances independently. This can be quite frustrating when you want to keep up with your brother and join in with family adventures outside. While Alex does use a wheelchair, it limits him to short trips to places with smooth flat surfaces.   With the help of the Fund for Good, Alex now has a new all-terrain stroller that is able to travel over woodchips, gravel and grass

Michelle overcomes her fear of individualised funding For years the thought of individualised funding scared Michelle Smith. In August last year, she finally decided to take the plunge. She shares her journey with In Touch Magazine.  When I was first approached by my needs assessor Kelly about individualised funding nearly four years ago, I immediately said no. The thought of it scared me. I had spoken to people about it in the past, but the idea of employing staff, dealing w

Emma loves to do whatever her big sisters are doing, and she’s on a mission to do just that in her new Corzino X Country Stroller with the help of the Fund For Good grant. Emma lives with her parents Cindy and Nathan, and big sisters Lily-Anne and Chloe. Together as a family they’ve worked tirelessly over the last 3.5 years helping Emma with her daily therapy programme. Emma has done so well she is now crawling, sitting independently, rolling, learning to pick things up, supp

As Individualised Funding started gaining real traction 6 years ago, Manawanui wanted to understand its effectiveness and cost benefits over more traditional care support models. We commissioned Dovetail to run independent research to review the care and support costs of clients using the Individualised Funding model (IF) versus those using non-IF funding options. The research company found IF is more cost-efficient and more ‘stable’ than non-IF funding for similar care needs

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hearing from some of you that our newsletters aren’t turning up in your inbox like they used to. So, we’ve called in our Microsoft partner to improve the deliverability of our emails from our end, and we think we’ve done a good job getting more people to see our newsletters in their inbox and not hidden in some spam or junk folder. But the best way to guarantee you never miss out on a newsletter again, is to add my email address into your E