Tena koe, ko Alysha Taku ingoa. Hello, Alysha here. I have been a HIP on and off since 2017, and have the honour of calling myself the first HIP in Aotearoa, trained by Patti Robinson herself. I have HIPped in Auckland, Taranaki, Taupo and Queenstown, and have trained HIPs from almost every PHO in the country.

My Background: I am trained as a Health Psychologist, and have always been drawn to primary care, prevention, public health style mahi. When ProCare, my employer at the time, asked if I would be interested in becoming trained as a HIP / BHC by Patti Robinson, i jumped at the chance. I started in the pilot program as a HIP at University of Auckland Health Centre, and immediately knew this was powerful incredible work, I fell in love with the model despite being SO resistant and skeptical at the start. Fast forward to 2019, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, and feeling pressure from Te Whatu Ora and ProCare to show that this program was worth funding and developing further. I started to notice what I now see as burnout, creeping in. I developed insomnia, IBS, and was struggling to stay present in my life as I was FRAZZLED. The only thing that made me feel good or better was working harder and more, and giving MORE to everyone. Obviously, burning the candle at both ends … you run out of wick. I asked for help, didn’t get it. So I booked a one-way flight to Panama. I don’t know why, I just knew my body needed to be far away from that context, for a long period of time. I had an extremely healing and transformational year away from NZ travelling … then covid bought me back home. Would you believe I fell straight back into the HIP world? I started working for Pinnacle PHO, which covered the whole middle of the North Island, and my task was to develop and establish the HIP model in Taranaki, where I was born and raised. I did that, and became a HIP trainer, and was sent all over Aotearoa to train HIPs. I moved to Wellington, and then to Queenstown, and continued HIPping and training and supervising HIPs. In Queenstown, I started to notice familiar unpleasant feelings of burnout creeping back in … feeling completely depleted and drained by 5pm, feeling resentful towards clients and colleagues for asking things of me, insomnia, and more. I decided now was the time to pivot into doing something new and different, I wanted to help HIPs be happy and healthy, and want to stay in the mahi. So here we are! I am dedicating this period of my life to the wellbeing of our workforce! We all have things we can do and change to make our situation better, so we don’t have to wait on organisational change, we can be empowered to put ourselves FIRST and still do a really good job with our clients, because Aotearoa needs you WELL!