› Shining a light on child and youth mental health

Māia Health Foundation is on a mission to raise funds for a modern, fit-forpurpose mental health outpatient facility for children and young people in Canterbury. We need your help to make it better for people like Otty. Otty was an over-achiever. Happy, surrounded by friends, captain of the football and basketball teams, a star student – and then everything fell apart. “It was about a year after the earthquakes that my anxiety kicked off. I couldn’t switch off at school or at home and I couldn’t sleep. That’s when I was first referred to Canterbury's Child, Adolescent and Family mental health service,” she says. Otty was treated in the outdated facilities at The Princess Margaret Hospital and Hillmorton sites.

“It almost feels like a prison – everything’s very dark and you feel like you’re going to get trapped. It doesn’t fill you with motivation to get better. But the staff are amazing – it was 110 percent them that helped me.” Learn more about the game-changing difference a modern, fit-for-purpose facility will make for rangatahi and their whānau in Otty's Story on the Maia website.

Join us to help raise $300,000 by Christmas. Be part of a community that cares about child and youth mental health. For more information go to shinealight.nz or scan the QR code below. * Thanks to the Rainbow Children’s Trust and other generous donors, donations will be dollar-matched up to a total of $150,000. 15 November 2021

Otty, a former patient in the Child, Adolescent and Family Specialist Mental Health Services