When you face a conflict of interest involving whānau connections
What a Coaching Scenario is
Not quiz style. This is judgement practice — you're put inside a real situation from human-services work and asked what you would actually do. It draws on the knowledge you use on the job, not the kind you can look up.
Every choice changes what happens next, and every choice gets a coaching beat straight after it: what drew you toward that option, and how it played out. What's held back is the verdict on your path, so you stay with what you'd genuinely do rather than working out what you're supposed to say.
- 4 decisions
- Each one shaped by the one before it. No two paths through are the same.
- Coaching as you go
- A beat after every decision, naming the pull behind your choice and where it led.
- A full debrief
- Your whole path replayed at the end, with the reasoning behind each decision you made.
- Evidence you can keep
- A completed scenario is recorded in your PracticeLab and appears in your downloadable ProofKit.
Scenarios are made to be talked about. Most people finish one still turning it over, which makes them a ready-made prompt for supervision, a team meeting or a conversation with a colleague — everyone walks the same situation, and comparing where you each landed is often where the real learning happens.
This one ends with
Next time a whānau connection surfaces in your team, notice it before it becomes a problem — and make space for the disclosure conversation early.
The situation
You are the manager of a well-regarded kaupapa Māori community services organisation in a mid-sized town. The organisation holds contracts with the Ministry of Social Development and is governed by a board drawn from local hapū. Your team is tight-knit — most staff have grown up in the same community, and whānau connections between colleagues, clients, and board members are the norm, not the exception.
This week a referral lands on your desk for Ngaire, a 34-year-old woman seeking intensive family wellbeing support. You recognise the name. Ngaire is the younger sister of Anewa, one of your senior practitioners — a deeply trusted team member who has been with the organisation for six years. Anewa hasn't mentioned the referral. Your conflict of interest policy requires that staff disclose when a family member is being considered for services and that managers assess whether the staff member can be involved in that person's case.
As you're reviewing the referral, a junior staff member, Mere, stops by your office. She tells you, quietly, that Anewa has already been informally involved — he attended a brief 'whānau hui' with Ngaire last week to help her understand what support was available, before the formal referral was made. Mere seems uncomfortable. She's not sure if she's done the right thing by telling you. She says: "I just — I didn't want it to become a problem for everyone."
You thank Mere and tell her you'll look into it. You close the door. You have a decision to make about what to do next.
What you're practising
Before you start, notice
Real-world decisions in scenarios like this are shaped as much by feeling as by reasoning. People often notice one of these pulls — naming what you feel before you decide is half the skill.
- Loyalty to a trusted colleague — and not wanting to damage a relationship that matters
- Discomfort with 'making it official' when kaupapa feels like it calls for a more relational response
- Protectiveness toward Mere — worry that raising this will expose her to team tension
- The pull to resolve things quietly so the organisation's reputation stays intact
Policies this draws on
- Charities Act 2005 (NZ)
- Public Interest Disclosure Act 2023 (NZ)
- Ngā Paerewa Health and Disability Services Standard NZS 8134:2021
- Your organisation's conflict of interest policy
- Your own organisation's policies take precedence — check them where they apply.
Heads up — coaching scenarios work differently. You'll make a sequence of decisions as the situation unfolds, and after each one you'll get a coaching beat: what drew you toward that choice, and how it played out. The one thing held back is the verdict on the path you took — that lands in the debrief at the end, with your whole walk replayed alongside it.
New to Good Practice Hub? Coaching Scenarios come with PracticeLab Pro, or browse the practice library to see what else is there.
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