Takitoru - Parallel to partnership: The Treaty as a foundation for meaningful conversations

Abstract or Summary

Takitoru is created from a bicultural premise whose worldview stems from a Māori perspective to support tertiary education providers in training counsellors, and social service students to be able to work effectively with Maori. It advocates Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a foundational standard for engaging with Maori in education as well as with social service agencies. Takitoru can be described as an invitation to engage and generate an exchange of ideas from a position that honours the benefits of working together to create shared meaning, shared knowledge and experience, by upholding each other’s dignity and integrity in a way that is estimated to reduce space and distance between polarities of thinking and to examine and explore the basis of a relationship. The overall goal of Takitoru is to graduate counselors and social service workers who have a in-depth understanding and skill base that will enable them to be cross culturally and professionally competent, cross culturally clinically competent, and cross culturally flexible when working with Maori.