2026 WWPA Hui - Christchurch

Connect, be inspired, and learn alongside like-minded wellbeing professionals! Following the success of our inaugural conference and hui in 2025, WWPA is excited to bring you two regional events across Auckland and Christchurch in 2026.

This pivotal event is designed for you if you:

• Hold the reins of professional responsibility for workplace wellbeing

• Are driven to connect, collaborate, and learn from an thriving community of practice

• Seek to deepen your understanding of both the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ behind effective wellbeing strategies

• Are eager to contribute your voice and vision to sculpting the wellbeing profession's future.
  

Agenda

9.00 Registration and Coffee

9.30 Karakia and welcome from WWPA

Chris Hewitt, Board Member, WWPA; Manager - Customer Success, TELUS Health New Zealand

9.40 Capability, Connection, Collaboration: Our Roadmap to a Thriving Profession

Almost 18 months after our establishment, the WWPA Board have worked hard to help develop a strategy for the ongoing development and advancement of our profession. We open the conference by taking you through our strategic roadmap for the next two years, along with explaining how you can contribute to the growth of workplace wellbeing practice in Aotearoa.

10.20 The Architecture of Flourishing: Designing the Conditions for Sustainable Well-being 

Many well-being interventions work—but their benefits often fade once the programme ends. This keynote explores a shift from thinking like a florist, delivering practices that can brighten people's lives, to thinking like a gardener, cultivating conditions in which flourishing can take root and sustain itself. Drawing on the Architecture of Flourishing, it explores how positive change can become self-reinforcing across the different layers of our lives, and introduces five practical principles for designing conditions that help it do so. 

Reuben Rusk, Founding Director, Mindquip

11.10 Morning break

11.30  What executive leaders are looking for and how to pitch when time is limited

You may have compelling wellbeing data, a strong business case, and clear evidence of workforce needs. Yet securing leadership attention and investment can still be challenging.

In this practical and engaging session, executive leader Julie Cameron will share insights gained from more than 20 years leading large-scale health and service operations across Aotearoa. Drawing on her experience leading complex health services, government partnerships, and multidisciplinary workforces, Julie will provide an executive perspective on how senior leaders evaluate competing priorities and decide where to invest.

Julie Cameron  

12.15 Case study: Wellbeing in practice

Megan Martin, Capability & Wellbeing Advisor, University of Canterbury and Rachel Dillon, Capability and Wellbeing Manager University of Canterbury

12.45 Lunch

1.45 Interactive Workshop: Developing and refining your psychosocial risk management  framework.

A key step in your organisation’s wellbeing maturity is a developing a deeper understanding of the psychosocial hazards that impact your employees, their exposure to those hazards, the controls you need to implement to mitigate those risks, and how you monitor those controls. In this workshop, our facilitators will take you step-by-step through the process of developing, monitoring and refining your psychosocial risk management strategy.

aWhether you are a wellbeing professional working within an organisation or you help others on their wellbeing journey, this interactive workshop will provide you practical tools to help you on your psychosocial risk management journey. 

Co-facilitated by: Sarah Rātima-Nolan, WWPA Board Member and Principal Advisor, Occupational Health, Safety & Organisational Resilience, Health NZ; and Vanessa Cooper, WWPA Board Member and Principal Advisor, Mentally Healthy Work, Worksafe New Zealand

2.45 Afternoon break

3.00 Workshop continues

4.00 Closing remarks and end of hui

Don't miss out! Join us at the inaugural WWPA conference and hui. It's where connections are forged, knowledge is expanded, and the future of workplace wellbeing is built.