Enliven New Zealand

The Importance of thinking about how you want to age

As the years fly by, it’s easy to see how people can turn around and suddenly find themselves rapidly approaching retirement having given little thought to what they would like to do or how they want to age. However, putting some thought into it now can really pay off later.

Between now and 2040, the New Zealand population will grow by 12%, but the number of people aged over 65 will jump by 44% and the number of over-85’s will double to nearly 200,000 (Stats NZ).

How do you imagine growing older? Making a few key decisions now can smooth the road ahead and help ensure you age the way you want to.

From a financial perspective, it is important to keep your Will updated and set up an Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) to specify and safeguard your wishes if you can no longer make decisions.

Creating an Advanced Care Plan is also a good idea because it helps you clarify what you want in your later years including for instance, what you want or would not want at the end of life.

The next question is where do you want to be? Do you plan to stay in your own home for as long as you can, could you move in with family, or would you prefer to go into aged residential care facility (e.g. rest home)?

If you’d prefer to stay in the community, you may be able to stay at home longer than you think. There are wonderful, personalised services like Enliven that offer up to 30 hours per week personal care and household management services to support you with this.

Other key questions to consider are:

Is where you live now going to be suitable as you grow older?

Are your living and bedroom spaces all on one level to make it easier to get around?

Are your bathrooms accessible if you need to use a walker at some point? Is your house too big?

Are you living close to your GP, hospital services, and public transport?

All these things can contribute to your quality of life.

Staying connected to friends and family and keeping up with your interests is important as you age and has proven health benefits. What’s good for your heart is good for your mind, keep active and remember the power of a good laugh.

Enliven also has day services based in community settings throughout the country, which are designed to support people make the most of their independence during the day. A personalised programme is developed with each person to provide opportunities for social interaction and engagement in the local community.

Enliven services are free and can be accessed through your GP who will then refer you to a Needs Assessment Service Co-ordination agency (NASC). A NASC assessor will meet with you to discuss your needs and your choice of the service you’d like to use.

Don’t leave asking for help for too long, if you need help, talk to your GP.

You don’t have to go into an aged residential care facility (rest home). You can stay in your own home for as long as you are able.

By Wendy Hoskin, PSN GM Health and Disability.

Enliven is a values-based health and disability service that is part of Presbyterian Support Northern.

Aotearoa Aged Care Action Plan

Presbyterian Support New Zealand are proud to endorse the Aged Care Action Plan.

Our Dementia Mate Wareware HomeShare Pilot in Te Wai Pounamu

Presbyterian Support Upper South Island is proud to hold the contract for a collaboration between 12 organisations across Te Waipounamu – 4 Home Care, 5 Alzheimer/Dementia NGOs and 3 Marae. Together we plan to provide respite to support the South Island’s rural communities, Māori, and people with Young Onset Dementia.

Our goal is to weave Treaty Enhancing approaches in all that is undertaken and deliver respite for the target populations in 17 sites across Te Waipounamu (13 rural, 3 Māori and 1 Young Onset service).

Our mission is to provide a day respite service that is fun to attend and provides socialisation, stimulation, friendship and education. All referrals are through Te Whatu Ora’s NASC assessment teams which ensures the service is free: there are no private payers for this government-funded pilot. Together we developed and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to agree on the key responsibilities of each agency and understand how teams will work together.

If it’s led by Presbyterian Support, it’s values driven.

We also developed a Position Paper on Dementia/Mate Wareware to go further promoting these values with decision-makers and advocating for more measures to be taken as New Zealand’s population ages.

[To view Presbyterian Support NZ’s position paper on Dementia/Mate Wareware click here].

If you’re in the South Island and living with Dementia, or have a whānau member with Mate Wareware, it doesn’t matter what age – contact us at Presbyterian Support for information about how to be assessed by a local NASC team for referral to our Pilot programme.

Our rural Homeshares can be found in Wanaka, Oamaru, Balclutha, Waimate, Geraldine, Temuka, Wakefield, Spring Creek, Havelock, and Reefton. We are working on HomeShare with our Māori Health teams in Otago, Timaru, and Christchurch. The Homeshare for Young Onset Dementia is in Ōtautahi, Christchurch.

Story ends.

Supporting Our Older People

Are we doing enough, as a country, to be able to support our older people now and into the future?

NZCCSS have delved into this question as part of their latest report, Te Kōrero mō ngā Kaumātua: Exploring the context of older people in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This online resource provides the fullest possible picture of the social, environmental and structural context of older people in New Zealand – as well as what is missing. By framing it as an easy-to-read guide with links to further information, we hope it will be of benefit to a wide variety of people in Aotearoa – those who form the cohort, policymakers, the community, health and social services workforce, funders, families, the media, or anyone with a curiosity about this age stage.

With a rapidly ageing population, having high quality, accessible and clear information to support understanding of this group is crucial. And yet, the information needed to gain a full picture is spread widely and can require specialist skills – and considerable time – to track down. This resource seeks to correct that and aims to be a considered overview of a complex field.

This work was also intended as a call to action, to generate interest and spark collaboration. NZCCSS members have observed that many of the issues faced by older New Zealanders can be traced back to a lack of prioritisation of older persons’ needs. NZCCSS feel strongly that this is because of systemic ageism that undervalues and deprioritises the needs of older New Zealanders.

Without specific older persons’ policy, and attention within and across the system, the issues we are seeing of insufficient funding, isolation and loneliness, physical and mental health deterioration, digital divide, and lack of visibility for older persons’ needs will persist or grow as this population increases in size.

Te Kōrero mō ngā Kaumātua is available on the NZCCSS website and they’re sure you will find it useful. They are available to come in to present their findings to your team as well as collaborate on next steps to best support our older people across Aotearoa. If you’re interested in this, please email .

“Here’s a peak inside Te Kōrero mō ngā Kaumātua”

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