Flourish Taranaki

A new charitable community collaboration based in New Plymouth is bringing more support to families. Flourish Taranaki is focused on parenting education and connection to services.

“Flourish is the result of a collaboration of passionate Taranaki people and their associated community groups, wanting to connect whānau to applicable services, and create something special within our community which could not be achieved alone," Jana Dunnet, Co-Founder, said.

“We want everyone to be able to ride the inevitable struggles of parenting and not feel isolated, or left wanting when they reach out. We are connecting with diverse programmes, which have been in various states of uptake and delivery in Taranaki, due to fluctuations in resourcing."

“Our biggest challenge has been sourcing funding as a startup. One of our Trustees successfully pitched for the TSB Good Stuff grant of $30k, which gave us a start to get the ball rolling.”

“We are establishing a base where parents can drop in, and a digital platform for the sharing of knowledge, resources, and skills. To start delivering our programmes in our newly leased premises, we needed some furniture to make our space comfortable and inviting for attendees.”

Toi Foundation provided funding of $35k to start up and fit out the Flourish Taranaki hub at New Plymouth Raceway. 

“Our plan is to deliver courses to around 250 people per year. We are initially offering access to eight different parenting-focused programmes. We are excited to be able to connect parents with programmes by other providers too. The programmes have been very successful and we have received great feedback, enabling us to build on our offerings throughout 2022.”

“Because we enable parents to access the right service at the right time, our children will be in safer and more functional homes, allowing parents the opportunity to parent powerfully, confidently, and positively. This will serve to reduce the downstream social and economic costs to communities,” Jana said.