Volunteer Service Abroad

Warwick Brunton

Warwick is an historian by training and his PhD thesis explored the development of national mental health policy in New Zealand from 1840 to 1947. His historical publications include various aspects of mental / public health policy, services, legislation and organisation. 

Before he retired from the University of Otago in 2012, Warwick Brunton had been a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine and Associate Dean (International) in the Division of Health Sciences. In 2015 he and his wife Shirley took up a year-long VSA assignment in Kiribati where Warwick volunteered as a Nursing School Principal Mentor with the Kiribati School of Nursing based in Tarawa, Kiribati. He was accompanied by his wife Shirley, an Anglican priest, and completed his assignment in September 2016 

Warwick worked alongside the newly appointed head of the Kiribati School of Nursing. His work as Adviser included participating in a review of the nursing curriculum, reviewing academic policies, coordinating the monitoring and evaluation of the quality of teaching of theory and clinical practice, and introducing systems for performance appraisal and staff development. A key part of the assignment was to promote greater self-reliance by increasing the employment of I-Kiribati nurses in the School and in the health service.

 Warwick and Shirley are about to undertake a month long trip to China and the UK …….

Shirley Brunton

Shirley comes from Tauranga and met Warwick as a university student in Wellington.  As a social worker at Porirua Hospital, she was involved in the acute care of patients and saw the ups and downs of deinstitutionalisation over many years.  Shirley has also worked as an adoption counsellor with Barnados and with health services for the elderly.  A report she wrote based on New Zealand’s bicultural experience nurtured the first links between the Anglican Church and First Nations peoples in Ottawa.     Her call led to ordination as an Anglican priest in 2001 and assistance in various Dunedin parishes.  For several years, Shirley was a Hospital Chaplain in Dunedin with particular responsibility for Mental Health Services.  She was also Hospice Chaplain for a time.

Shirley is a keen grandmother, gardener and traveler.  She loves trout fishing in the great lakes of Otago and Southland!

She came to Kiribati with no particular assignment (being an accompanying partner, to use VSA’s term) but opportunities soon presented themselves to work alongside I-Kiribati people.   In the last term of 2015, Shirley joined another New Zealand volunteer helping pupils at the Rurubao International Primary School, Bairiki, with reading and comprehension.  About the same time, the Principal of the Tangintebu Theological College, which is run by the Kiribati Uniting [Protestant] Church, asked her to be their chaplain and to lead worship from time to time.  In 2016, this role expanded into classroom teaching of pastoral skills and English at the College and in supporting the development of the College library.  Shirley also provides informal supervision to two staff members who are completing their master’s theses.