She has cared for more than 250 foster children and still has one boy spending a week with her each month.

Bridgeman has also supported Faith and Light, a faith-based group supporting those with intellectual disabilities, the Taranaki Disabilities Information Trust, the Open Home Foundation Taranaki, the St Joseph's Conference of St Vincent de Paul, and the New Plymouth Pakeke Lions Club. Read More

It'd be a difficult ask if you actually lived through its madness.

Maybe you might recall Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies is worthy of note, but I can only watch them in fury today - as I did then.

Starting in the late 60s, the only movie roles for young attractive women were the gamut of hair colours from blonde to brunette, with various accents and skin colours. They all behaved, regardless of the colour of their wigs, like that male invention, a nymphomaniac, dropping their undies for any cop with a swish-back hairdo and a big handgun.

The effect was comedic; the intention not even ironic. Feminists who dared to call for equality were portrayed as monsters. Clint couldn't stand them.

It seemed like everyone was slavering after young women who were "on the pill," the notorious new gateway to much bad sex. Hugh Hefner was taken seriously, even in his pyjamas.

And in New Zealand, we had Bert Potter's Centrepoint commune. I look back on that experiment as a turning point for middle-class values that left a legacy of unhappiness and regret.

Just how a former pest controller (no irony there either) came to be a guru of human sexuality can never really be explained, but Centrepoint was covered by a tame media as a credible pathway to the fully realised life, kids watching the adults in action, the old boy himself living his personal pornographic fantasy, while otherwise intelligent people joined up to be liberated from bourgeois hang-ups like fidelity and privacy.

It ended in crying. In a courtroom, fun looks so different, and excuses echo hollowly.

I expect there's embarrassment among many former livers of that dream who'd rather forget. I know there was real harm done to children, some of whom were fed ecstasy to make them co-operate with Centrepoint men.

And their parents thought that was OK. Or didn't think. There wasn't much thinking happening. Continue reading

The company was established by Kaitaia GP, Dr Lance O'Sullivan and his wife Tracy O'Sullivan

Both nominations are due in large part to iMOKO, a healthcare software program which utilises technology to deliver high quality basic health services.

iMOKO started out as a grassroots initiative.

"Members of my community approached me at my practice, telling me they couldn't get access to the healthcare services they needed," Lance explains.

So iMOKO was developed by Navilluso Medical to target communities with high needs and vulnerable children.

Lance figured if he could get the right technology within the communities, and train locals to use it he would not only reduce staff costs but increase care.

iMOKO "is is a digital healthcare platform where we are actually wanting to democratise health care by putting simple technologies in to the hands of whanau to achieve better health outcomes."

The iMOKO programme starts by placing smart tablets with iMOKO software into schools and early child care centres.

Lance and his team train approved people to conduct health assessments of common child health problems, such as skin and dental infections, strep throat, and head lice.

He believes the relationships already established between kaiawhina and tamariki is beneficial when assessing the health of vulnerable children.

So from a "kanohi ki te kanohi" point of view, its actually about optimising who's the best person to be the face of health care.

Around 6000 children across 110 sites from all over the country are in the iMOKO database to date.

Lance says this is only the beginning and his ultimate goal is to have 400,000 children accessing health care through iMOKO.

Source

• inner.kiwi
• maoritelevision.com
• Image: Screenshot Maori Television

Mrs Tolley and a delegation of officials were questioned by the committee as part of its five-yearly report.

They talked at length about the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

Tolley has defended her Ministry for Vulnerable Children after a UN children's' rights committee described it as "a bit strange"

Unicef NZ executive director Vivien Maidaborn, who was part of the delegation, said the panel had expressed concern about the new ministry.

Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft, who was part of the New Zealand team, said the committee had some misgivings about the government's new approach. Continue reading