OCH Support Planner For Families

We now have a Support Planner available for families to use as a way to share and plan the help they need.

This planner will be a useful tool for families to help avoid the oversupply of baking, the endless lasagnas, or the kind but unsolicited visits/offers of help from well meaning friends and family.

The patient or carer can fill in what they need, and when, and then share the form with whānau, friends, or anyone who offers to help. The answer to that familiar phrase “Let me know what I can do to help” is now “Have a look at this and if there is something there you feel you can do please fill it in”. There are also some suggestions on the page for tasks that might be helpful. 

This planner can be printed and used as a hard copy or it can be shared digitally and the boxes, which expand as you fill them in, can be completed online so that everyone involved can see what is still needed. The link will be sent out to the clinical team and the document will be on the website under the self care section on the Kōwhai page.

The planner also creates a way of asking for help without needing to ask a specific person to do a specific task. The person can simply share the sheet with anyone who offers, or via a group chat or email, inviting anyone who wishes to help to fill in what they can do. So those struggling to ask for help might find it a little easier to put down on paper and share without the need to reach out individually.