About Little Lungs – Pūkahukahu Iti

Little Lungs – Pūkahukahu Iti provides best practice workshops to the early childhood sector on the Smokefree Aotearoa target. The workshops are run by The Southern District Health Board and WellSouth. 

Early childhood educators are comfortable talking to parents about sleep, toileting and nutrition but for many, discussing the need for Smokefree cars and homes is “a bridge too far”.

The identification of this common problem was the platform for the development of the Little Lungs – Pūkahukahu Iti programme. We also recognised that to achieve the Government’s goal of a Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025 we need to engage the support of other sectors.

The programmes aims are to provide the teaching community with simple ideas and tools to deliver and promote Smokefree cars and homes messages to parents and caregivers. The core component of the programme is a workshop delivered at a staff meeting along with a follow up meeting a month later. On-going support is provided on an as requested basis. In addition, we have some helpful resources that can be downloaded from this website. Find out more here.

Little Lungs – Pūkahukahu Iti is a collaborative project that was developed by WellSouth Primary Health Network and the Southern District Health Board. Since 2013 it has been delivered to over 250 teachers from 50 centres early childhood centres throughout Otago and Southland.

The programme is supported locally by representatives from the Ministry of Education. Early childhood providers can request and use Little Lungs – Pūkahukahu Iti for free, and receive some great resources for participating in the programme. Please contact us for more information.