Piki on track to help thousands of young people across the region

The Government’s free youth mental health pilot, Piki, is on track to help an estimated 10,000 young people with mild to moderate mental health issues across the region’s 3 DHB areas over the next two years. This comes ahead of the Tū Ora Compass Health’s Piki celebration for the Wairarapa region on Friday 23rd August.

Launched in February, Piki is available in throughout the Wellington, Hutt and Wairarapa areas, supporting 18 to 25 year olds with mild to moderate mental health needs and/or substance use challenges.

“Piki is being run as a pilot project to see how to best engage young people in accessing mental health support,” says Liz Stockley - Director Primary Care Wairarapa for Tū Ora Compass Health.

“We are delighted to be offering free and innovative mental health solutions through the Piki initiative to a base of around 3,700 young people in the Wairarapa and it’s encouraging that many young people in our wider region have received help so far.” ]

“We’re especially pleased to be removing access barriers for those young people living rurally in the Wairarapa, who can now self-refer through the Piki website to access a range of support services online and by phone as well as face-to-face therapies,” she says.

Piki has been co-designed with help from a youth reference group and is complemented by a comprehensive independent evaluation by Otago University to ensure