For over 40 years, CCI Support has worked with clients in the Bay of Plenty and more recently all throughout New Zealand, delivering an essential service where support and resources from the medical sector is limited.
We have 5 x Health & Wellness Facilitators working either nationally or for regional areas. The pandemic has negatively impacted most New Zealanders, especially our chronically unwell community. Our clients were already familiar with living in their own kind of lockdown, one that feels like it will never end with some days rolling into another with no end in sight. The physical, emotional and financial toll can result in anxiety and depression and despair. Many of our clients tell us that being validated and believed is one of the most important aspects of their journey towards wellness.
CCI Support exists to ‘Empower People Towards Wellness’ by providing support, connections, education, and advocacy to clients who experience complex chronic illness, their whānau, and their communities. Complex chronic illnesses include Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS), Fibromyalgia, Post-Viral Fatigue / Syndrome, Dysautonomia and Long Covid.
Those with complex chronic illness experience symptoms which severely impact their day-to-day life, such as extreme physical and mental fatigue, muscle and joint pain, impaired memory and concentration, sleep disturbance, headaches, gastrointestinal issues, and anxiety.
CCI Support clients progress from a life of pain and isolation towards an improved quality of life, re-engaging with their whānau and community, with an increased ability to participate in a life which is meaningful – and achieving our purpose to ‘Empower People Towards Wellness.’
Positive change in our clients is achieved by offering a range of services which are backed by a team of qualified field officers, a supportive staff and Board, and members who find connections, encouragement, and relief in a safe community.
CCI Support meets a community need where there is an absence or little support from the health sector for those experiencing chronic complex illness. CCI Support provides an essential service, supporting, connecting, educating, and providing advocacy to clients who experience complex chronic illness, their whānau, and their communities.
The nature of complex chronic illness means many who were once active members of their community have, due to their illness, resigned themselves to a life where isolation, confusion, pain, and depression are part of their world, with few resources or support to see a way forward.
Our services include:
Qualified Health & Wellness Facilitators who provide support, mentoring, advice, counselling, and advocacy
The award winning CCI Support Towards Wellness Programme offering the best research-based knowledge in an easy-to-understand package to help people living with complex chronic illness begin to find their next steps towards wellness
Workshops and support groups for clients and their whānau and their communities
Advocacy and awareness
Newsletters, library, bi-annual seminar