An accountability model for Pakeha practitioners

Abstract

This paper outlines a model of accountability for Pakeha practitioners developed over many years as a practising community psychologist involved in research and development projects in Aotearoa in the 1980s and 1990s, during an era of contract-funded health projects, and increasing prominence of the Treaty of Waitangi2. The model could be termed 'transformative' in that it reverses the usual flow of power by making the Pakeha practitioner accountable to relevant Maori authority, and maximises the potential for new outcomes and new learning for all parties. A brief case study is outlined where the model placed a local iwi governance structure and a national psychiatric survivor organisation in positions of authority alongside the funder of a mental health project. Helpful conditions, positive outcomes and barriers to transformative accountability processes are briefly discussed.