Background:
In September 2021 Hauora a Toi Child Health Specialist Services set out to work together differently. At the time it was unclear as to what this might look like, but the services knew they had to work differently to respond to growing demand, overwhelming wait-times for assessment, fragmented inconclusive and drawn out assessment experience for whānau, frequent declines and bouncing between services. In addition to the  above, Māori were experiencing longer wait-times and were overrepresented in the clients the services failed to reach.  No new FTE was allocated for this project, and the solutions arose from a willingness among clinicians, specialists and services to collaborate, share resources and expertise, and reconfigure the resources within all three services to maximise efficiency and consumer experience.  This ongoing commitment to a collaborative approach to problems and solutions, which actively breaks down system driven siloed ways of working has been CHIRP's greatest challenge and greatest success, receiving it awards and acknowledgments in New Zealand and Australia.

Not only did CHIRP decide that it needed to work differently, but also that it would work under the same roof at a new building which was gifted the name Te Waka Aorangi (from the darkness to the light).  Whilst Te Whatu Ora had a business case in place for the fitout of the building, this was a multiple year programme of work, and so the Foundation sought to find the funds to bring forward the schedule, so the building could open earlier.