The objective of the Hauraki opportunity is to deliver in co-construction with the people of Hauraki a repeatable Wellbeing Measurement and Management System that measures what matters to them, so that their needs, aspirations, and priorities can be further understood and evidenced, and so that important choices regarding the present and future wellbeing of the region can be made wisely. The system must:

·       Be developed in such a way that communities and project partners have confidence in it to both to measure their wellbeing and the rigour and integrity of the findings.  There must be collective agreement that the process, measurement tools, and analysis will be/was robust and appropriate.

·       Empower communities with the system, tools, and knowledge to continue ethical and robust measurement longitudinally, should they choose to.

·       Build on what exists and what we already know. Any additional data collected will be carefully selected for its potential to add value to stakeholders, for example, measuring factors that fall outside of the remit of a project partners organisations but that provide a more holistic view for collective and sub-regional planning and strategy.

·       The process must, as its priority, make all efforts to be mana enhancing – and specifically not be extractive, repetitive, or do harm to those involved.

·       Secure and protect data as sovereign taonga.

·       Provide a flexible data set and set of measures that can be analysed, investigated, and have insights drawn from in a variety of ways to meet the needs of the many stakeholders with an interest in the wellbeing of Hauraki.

The Approach

Working in partnership with The Waikato Wellbeing Project and Hauraki Project and Measurement partners, Huber Social will establish a bespoke measurement system to measure the wellbeing, outcomes and driving factors for wellbeing in the Hauraki rohe.

Engagement with community, at all stages of the project, will be genuine, culturally appropriate, and do no harm. Participants will fully and freely give informed consent to the process, and understand how the measurement system and results may be used and by whom.

The project will be co-constructed with project and measurement partners, and bespoke to Hauraki and its people. Huber Social will utilising factors that exist, and prior wellbeing research where appropriate. This may mean that a variety of measurement tools are required; exact requirements will be determined during the Plan stage.

Anticipated Results

Delivering rigorous results in the short-term findings of the initial measurement will be presented as a collective, and by agreed sub-groups as determined in the measurement planning process - these could be geographical regions or other demographics groupings of particular interest such as Māori, youth, recent migrants, or disabled people.

Capability Building

To empower Hauraki people with the system, tools, and knowledge to both conduct the initial measurement successfully, and continue ethical and robust measurement longitudinally, should they choose to.

As well as capability building throughout for project and measurement partners proposed education opportunities include a short series of live (and recorded) webinars:

a)     Introduction to wellbeing measurement.

b)     Guidance for ethical measurement.

c)     Action workshop: turning findings into action.

Longitudinal capability

Once in place, the measurement system can be used to measure the impact year on year, or at another appropriate time frame as determined by the community themselves.  This proposal covers the co-design and implementation of a measurement system (the ‘set up’) plus the first measurement and reporting for the initial measurement. Any subsequent measures can be conducted by project partners upon renewal of ethical approval. Huber Social will be available to support should consistency of reporting and methodology be desired.

Benchmarking and comparability.

In the longer-term the rigour and comparability will grow as more community’s partner with Te Ara Poutama and conduct measurement. With that will come the opportunity to both benchmark and compare results across communities and build upon them in follow on longitudinal measurement. A community lens will be applied to each project in line with the broader intentions of Te Ara Poutama. This will ensure consistency of approach, methodology, and outcomes measured across all projects.