Diversity Counselling New Zealand (DCNZ) - Free counselling Covid-19 Project
Diversity Counselling New Zealand (DCNZ) is a charitable organisation that offers culturally responsive counselling/psychology services for migrants and former refugees since its establishment in 2013.
Mental health & Addiction in Adults & Children of Ethnic Communities Awareness workshop
DCNZ has excellent connections with ethnic communities and takes a comprehensive community-oriented strength-based approach to enhancing the well-being of ethnic people, families, and communities.
DCNZ provides counselling services for Asian, Middle Eastern/Latin American/African, and other ethnic groups, such as east European and Fiji Indian of all age groups in the Waikato region. In DCNZ, all our practitioners are vetted, registered professional counsellors and clinical psychologists from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
We offer our services in English, Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Sinhalese, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Nyanja, German, Hungarian, and for other languages, we use interpretation services.
The services of DCNZ continuously contribute to building resilient families, strengthening psychological wellbeing for migrants and former refugees through providing culturally responsive counselling/psychology services and family support. Community wellbeing is at the heart of our practice. We have tailored our service to meet the needs of the people we serve, such as home visits, after hours/weekend contacts, as examples.
Although there is a great need for psychological support and counselling for people from ethnic communities, counselling is often seen as a foreign concept and is highly stigmatized along with mental health issues by specific ethnic communities.
From our experiences and research, non-threatening, strength-based group programmes are effective to reach out to persons in primary care community settings with needs, to address their concerns using counselling principles in a format that reduces stigma. Therefore, we have developed and are facilitating a range of well-being therapeutic programmes along with our counselling services. Please refer to DCNZ website to find out more about the programmes.
As a result of the current situation with Covid-19; stress, anxiety, relationship difficulties and situational depression, panic attacks, sexual violence, family violence, grief/loss, loss of employment, addictions, as examples, have significantly impacted communities, particularly vulnerable former refugees. Social changes have compounded existing barriers to access mainstream mental health and social services, such as language, culture, and finance.
Diversity counselling New Zealand has been offering free culturally responsive counselling and psychology services, in person, and via phone/skype/zoom for migrants and former refugees in their own cultural setting since last April. Free counselling/psychology services have been provided by DCNZ’s ethnic professional counsellors (who are registered with NZAC) and registered clinical psychologists in the Waikato region.
In the past, we received referrals from community organisations and statutory organisations. Through this Covid-19 free counselling project people asked for support directly and through virtual consultation we reached out to people from rural areas. The outcomes of counselling have been noted as very positive from the people who received our services as well as other stake holders and community organisations who have showed appreciation for our service. DCNZ's practitioners felt that they could support and enhance community wellbeing during this challenging period.
DCNZ is very grateful to support the removal of the barriers restricting access to services and ultimately better mental health and well-being.
DCNZ are based in the London Business Centre, 2nd Floor, 55 London Street, Hamilton CBD.
Vanisri Mills
Director & Counsellor DCNZ