Incredible influencer receives enormous honour

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Incredible influencer receives enormous honour

Marion Blake, the dynamic CEO of Platform Trust, was listed among those who received New Year’s Honours 2017. Marion was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to people with mental health and addiction issues.

“Marion has an incredible ability to influence and to provide insightful and intelligent advice in an empowering way” says Naomi Cowan, Chairperson of Platform Trust. “This award acknowledges Marion’s many achievements in creating change in mental health and addictions in New Zealand. The Platform Trust board could not be prouder of her”.

One of Marion’s greatest skills is her ability to collaborate widely to achieve maximum effect. The award states that ‘Ms Blake has excelled at leading collaboration in the NGO sector’. Marion works with her colleagues in the NGO sector and across government agencies, district health boards, primary health organisations, education and workforce providers and others to improve mental health and addictions policy and practice.

Over the course of her career, Marion has worked in senior leadership roles in the areas of service development, quality improvement and workforce development for a local authority, the NHS and social services in the United Kingdom and at the then Waitemata Health on her return to New Zealand, before taking up her role as CEO of Platform in 2001. Marion has seen various models of service delivery transform over time in both countries and she continues to maintain her focus on the next wave of systems change.

“We have come so far,” acknowledges Marion. “But we can see the tide of challenges rising in housing, education and employment, and with that the mental health and addictions issues in people’s lives have become so much more complex”.

Marion’s passion for ensuring that New Zealand has adequate and appropriate mental health and addictions services to support people, their whanau, friends and communities is unfailing.

Platform Trust is the national network of community organisations that support New Zealanders by providing a wide range of mental health and addiction services and creating a positive place for people experiencing mental health and addiction issues to live and work.

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