What's Happening at Lifeline - Lifeline Auckland


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What's Happening at Lifeline By Annie Bradshaw
Living Works Some of you may recall Chris Goj, our Living Works Co-ordinator, was shortlisted for the Ashton Wylie unpublished manuscript award last year. We are very proud to say Chris’s book, The Casebooks of Dr Schnuggiputz:The Case of Walter. A Therapists Problem has now been published and a review by Denis Bunbury appears in this issue of the newsletter. The book is available for sale in time for a great Christmas present! (for details click here) Living Works is busy finishing workshops for the rest of the year and early next year they have a strategic planning day organised with the main aim of mapping our 2009 and begin looking at the ASIST programme for adaption for Maori and Pacific Island communities.
Kidsline 20th Anniversary Weekend On the weekend of 6 and 7 September over 100 Buddies from three generations gathered to celebrate 20 years of Kidsline. The day was kicked off with the cutting of the cake at Kidsline and an exhibition of archival media, reports, apparel and photos. On Saturday night was the formal dinner attended by over 80 alumni. The three speakers were Bruce Mackie (the Lifeline Director that founded Kidsline), Saione Greer (one of the Pioneer Buddies of 1988) and Karen Leuschke (still a Kidsline mentor 21 years after first getting involved!). Current Buddies shared their talents with three musical items reflecting Kidsline memories over two decades. The weekend was a wonderful chance to reconnect with past Buddies. We are looking forward at continuing the connections made over the weekend with an ‘alumni weekend’ on the Kidsline calendar in 2009 and beyond. A big thanks must go out to all the current Buddies and KRT that helped make the weekend possible.
Family Violence Information Line(FVIL)/211/Victims of Crime (VoC) Since taking over the reins at FVIL/211/VoC Rikeeta Tarak has been a busy lady. The VoC has started and is going well. Most of the calls will be taken by existing staff however if the line is anything like 211 and FVIL, it will grow and we will be looking for more call handlers. We’ll keep you posted.
Lowdown/ National Depression Line (NDI)
Congratulations to Dylan Norton who is the proud Dad of Isobella Mary Norton born on 27th August 2008. Isn’t she beautiful! Congratulations to Judy and Dylan. You’ll be hard pressed to find a more proud father! As if the new addition to the family isn’t enough, The Lowdown is preparing for a launch to celebrate the beginning of Mental Health Week which starts Sunday 5th October. The team has been invited to Snow Planet to see how capable they are at snowboarding amongst other activities. Team Leader, Daniel Maaka flew off to Hong Kong and Macau for ten days rest and recreation. He said he was “blown away” by Hong Kong and informs us he wants to move there! He said he couldn’t get over the contrast between traditional and modern culture in such a tiny place. On one hand you have fields still being ploughed by hand and animal on the other high rise buildings with helicopter pads and globetrotting businessmen only a few kilometres away. He said he was impressed with the Hong Kong culture and added with a smile that designer handbags were plentiful, great quality and cheap. He should know with the shopping list he was given!
Work continues on refreshing The Lowdown website with plans to introduce new music and personalities. This is scheduled for the beginning of next year so keep an eye out. The Lowdown has to be one of the best websites you’ll visit. The NDI website is also in for a facelift. www.depression.org is simply an information page at the moment but from next year there are plans to revamp the site to be more interesting and have the ability to email for information.

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