Four locals have been recognised in the King’s Birthday and Coronation Honours List of 2023.
Dr Florence Joyce (Joyce) Cowan of Clevedon [formerly of Howick] was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to midwifery.
Cowan has contributed to the midwifery profession as a leader and educator for more than 50 years. She registered as a midwife in the 1970s and has since provided community and hospital-based care to pregnant women and babies throughout south Auckland.
She is a leading New Zealand midwifery expert in pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy condition that threatens the health and life of both mothers and babies.
Cowan co-founded the charity, New Zealand Action on Pre-eclampsia (NZ APEC) in 1994, which raises awareness and provides education for health professionals about pre-eclampsia and supports women with pre-eclampsia and their families. The programme has contributed to the low perinatal mortality now associated with pre-eclampsia in New Zealand.
She introduced and currently leads the Growth Assessment Programme (GAP) in New Zealand, an education programme which has resulted in improved detection of smaller babies during pregnancy and a reduction in neonatal deaths. ACC has provided funding for the roll-out of GAP nationally. While a senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology Midwifery Department, she published her doctoral thesis in 2020 on the effect of implementation of GAP in Counties Manukau on maternal and neonatal outcomes.
Cowan has presented her research findings on GAP education and pre-eclampsia at several national and international conferences.
Kendal Judee Collins of Flat Bush was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to youth.
Collins is a social worker who has worked within Auckland schools and communities for 17 years, running wellbeing and creative programmes for Māori and Pacific young women, to develop resilience, self-esteem and body positivity.
Collins is the CEO of Sisters United New Zealand, which was co-founded in 2016 with her sisters and their collective experience in social work, creative arts and design.
The family-based youth organisation is committed to developing young women leaders, enabling them to have the right skills to be achieve their goals through innovative, educational and creative tools such as dance, music, spoken word and art. The mentoring programme ‘Young Queens and Crown Yourself’ was launched in schools for young women, as well as ‘Brothers United’ for young men in 2021, with 700 young people graduating the programme each year within 27 schools in Auckland.
These programmes equip young people to build resilience and combat issues such as bullying, negative body image, low self-esteem, mental wellbeing, social media and relationships. The schools-based programmes have developed into a youth employment programme ‘Connect’, which works with 200 disengaged young people each year to place into employment and other educational pathways. Collins was awarded Vodafone’s World of Difference Award for her work with Sisters United and Brothers United.
Dr Siale Alokihakau Foliaki of Beachlands was also made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to mental health and the Pacific community.
Foliaki is a psychiatrist who has made significant contributions to mental health, particularly in the Pacific community. Foliaki is currently a consultant psychiatrist at Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau and Clinical Lead Psychiatrist, Pasifika Health for Whakarongorau Aotearoa, New Zealand Telehealth Services, having held other clinical lead roles there since 2016. He has helped establish several Pacific health organisations, including the Tongan Health Society, Faleola Mental Health Services for Pacific adults and Vaka Toa for Pacific children and adolescents for Counties Manukau DHB.
He is on the Board of Vaka Tuatua and chair of the Pacific Information Advocacy Support Services (PIASS) Trust. He was lead Pacific researcher in Te Rau Hinengaro, the New Zealand Mental Health Survey. He has held policy roles with the Ministry of Health and the Mental Health Commission, developing mental health policies and guidelines addressing the needs of Pacific peoples in New Zealand.
He contributed to the development of the Pacific Mental Health Services and Workforce Papers that established the blueprint for the Mental Health Commission in the early 2000s. He helped write the Cultural Competency Guidelines for Pacific People for the New Zealand Medical Council. Foliaki is a dual fellow in adult and child and adolescent psychiatry with the Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.
Warren Graham Jack of Howick was also made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the community.
Jack has been contributing to his community in various ways for more than 40 years, including providing housing programmes, education and support for those experiencing mental health challenges. Jack was involved with the South Auckland establishment of Habitat for Humanity since 1994, becoming its first employee and serving as director between 2000 and 2015. He has been the manager of strategic programmes for Habitat for Humanity New Zealand and has led groups of volunteers to build homes in Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Thailand and Fiji.
He led an event involving more than 200 volunteers who built a four-bedroom house in under four hours. He has been the leader of global village teams for Habitat for Humanity since 2000. He helped establish an Early Childhood Centre and has been supporting the restoration and development of the national heritage reserve in Howick. He was a council member for six years, four as co-chair of Community Housing New Zealand, representing more than 100 community housing organisations in New Zealand. Jack has been involved with the Life Growth Community Trust since 2008 and is the Health and Safety Leader for the Wesleyan and Methodist Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.
