Message from Patron and Co-Founder Clive Hullett
October 2008
WALSH Trust will provide a range of exceptional, evidenced based mental health support services designed to meet the needs of people who experience mental ill-health.
These services will enable choice, promote and support recovery
– and will be delivered in people’s community.‘your choice, your recovery, your community’
"In early 1988, I attended a meeting of WADCOSS (West Auckland Council of Social Services) to identify the need for community based mental health services in Waitakere City, and the resources available to support them. I had been advised to attend this meeting by the Waitakere City Council.
I had made enquiries of the council about where I should go to ascertain what the community considered to be both its needs and the needs of those people moving from institutional psychiatric care into the community of West Auckland.
I did this because I am a person with a background in human services, and this, combined with the closing down of the large psychiatric institutions, such as Carrington, in the absence of having community based mental health services in place to meet the needs of people with mental illness, led to considerable concern for me.
So I went to the WADCOSS meeting and was there advised to meet with Elaine Underwood at Henderson House, a community mental health centre in Waitakere City. Elaine and I met and she confirmed the need to establish community based residential facilities that would support people with mental illness transitioning from institutional care to community support.
During the next six weeks, Elaine, Louis Ford, Brenda, Lyndy and I met at night in the dining room of our home in Delwood Avenue, Henderson, to identify needs and develop a strategy to establish a West Auckland community trust. The Trust would become the vehicle for the development and service provision of community based mental health services based on a philosophy of personal growth, recovery and the right to community inclusion and participation in Waitakere City.
During this time, we became aware that a property at 168 Te Atatu Road (previously a CYFS Family Home) was going up for auction by Landcorp. We thought this would be an ideal facility with which to commence the work of the Trust.
Meeting with the Auckland Area Health Board
Elaine and I met with representatives of the then Auckland Area Hospital Board to put a case to them to purchase the property and lease it back to a community trust. Surprisingly, they were very interested in the proposal, but as we weren’t at this stage a Legally Constituted Community Trust, we needed to become one for the Board to be able to have a business relationship with us. Then we needed to submit a formal business and service delivery proposal to them before they would commit to purchase.
A community meeting was quickly arranged to gauge community support for the establishment of community based mental health services in Waitakere City. The meeting resulted in a number of influential and committed West Auckland people being publicly elected to form what was to become the WALSH Trust Board Inc.
At this meeting, representatives of Davenport’s legal firm, Henderson, undertook to draw up the Trust Deed and Dr. Ritchie Gilmour offered to become the Settler of the Trust, paying the registration fee.
While things were moving along very quickly, we knew we wouldn’t be a legally constituted trust for at least another couple of months and that the date for auction of 168 Te Atatu Road was only a couple of weeks away. We quickly developed a formal business and service delivery proposal and arranged an urgent meeting with the Auckland Area Hospital Board.
Due to the processes of community development and consultation we had undertaken, coupled with the high calibre of community representatives elected to the Trust Board, and the endorsement of the Waitakere City Council, the Auckland Area Hospital Board representatives agreed to sign up a memorandum of understanding between the parties that would serve as an interim measure enabling the Hospital Board to participate in the auction.
'Not In My Back Yard' argued the neighbours
To the West Auckland community’s delight, the Hospital Board was the successful bidder at the auction - WALSH Trust was in business… well, not quite.
Those were the days of the NIMBY syndrome. Once it had become known the property was going to be used to provide residential services for ‘mentals’, ‘nutters’, rapists and druggies (you name it), the surrounding neighbourhood was up in arms and hell-bent on stopping any development of services.
This, I might add, wasn’t unexpected by the Trustees. We had already decided we would hold a public meeting especially for the surrounding neighbours and we had also allocated two Trustee positions on the Board specifically for neighbourhood representatives.
Trustees went door to door to personally invite neighbours to the meeting. On the night of the meeting, it was standing room only in the dining and poolroom area of 168 Te Atatu Road. The meeting was well facilitated and while, at the beginning of the meeting, it was very testy, by the end there was overwhelming support for 168 to be used to provide community based mental health services.
Those attending voted on the two neighbourhood representatives they wanted on the Trust Board. One of them, Colin Noble, became the first chairman of the WALSH Trust Board, and what an incredible job he did.
We were on our way!
We were on our way! From this small beginning, the Trust continued to develop services that were identified by both clients and the wider West Auckland community as being needed to support peoples’ recovery and social inclusion.
The Trust never operated in isolation and was committed to developing respectful relationships and networks that not only supported the development of quality based community mental health services but also supported the wider networks of community development and social services delivery.
The development and establishment of WALSH Trust was only made possible by the human sacrifice, commitment and vision of an incredible group of people, who willingly gave of their time, personal and professional resources and their reputations.
Over the past 20 years the Trust has continued to develop as the result of the incredible stewardship and vision of the Trustees, CEO, staff and clients of the Trust, and the wider support of the West Auckland community.
The Trust has become known as a leader in the provision of community based mental health services, an employer of choice and an organisation where all who are associated with it can be justifiably proud.
Congratulations to you all on attaining the 20th Anniversary of the WALSH Trust!"
(Abridged)
Read a newspaper article about the Hullett's and WALSHtrust