Work with rangatahi leads to outstanding research

From early on in her career, Professor Terryann Clark (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara) knew her vocation lay in working to improve the health of rangatahi living at the margins of society.

That led onto research and now, as Cure Kids Professorial Chair in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Clark is set to deliver her inaugural professorial lecture on 7 November at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.

Professor Terryann Clark’s extensive research is grounded in community and focused on mental health, wellbeing and equity for Māori youth.

As a child, raised in Moerewa, a small freezing-works town in Northland, Clark says university belonged to another world.

“Growing up, I’d never met anyone who went to university; I didn’t think it was for people like me.

“Now, as a professor, I want to ensure other small-town girls see themselves here, too.”

Clark’s father, Terry Clark, was a freezing worker and fisherman, and her mother, Johanna, worked her way from secretary to manager at the Paihia RSA.

A high school trip to the University of Auckland changed Clark’s outlook.

“I was about 16 when my art teacher, Mrs Maureen Woodcock, told me, ‘You could come here, too, Terryann,’ and it was the first time anyone had ever said that to me,” she says.

Clark’s academic journey began with a nursing degree from the University of Auckland, followed by hands-on training at Middlemore Hospital.

Then, her mentor, Waireti Walters, a prominent Māori public health activist, urged her to run sexual health workshops for youth in Glen Innes, East Auckland. Knowing nothing about sexual health education, she embraced the challenge.

Later she worked at Auckland Sexual Health Services and helped establish a peer support programme.

“Young people don’t always talk to adults, so we created the Auckland Peer Sexuality Support Programme to ensure they were well-informed through their peers.

“It was then that I realised I’d never be a traditional nurse; I wanted to work at the edges, finding gaps and exploring creative ways to meet young people’s needs.”

This early work in community health, particularly with Māori and Pacific youth, laid the foundation for her approach to adolescent healthcare.

“During my career, I have had some fantastic mentors who gave me gentle nudges, guiding me into spaces I hadn’t considered, like youth work.

“They saw my connection with young people and pushed me into areas like Auckland sexual health services, where we did groundbreaking work before decriminalisation of sex work, setting up ‘suitcase’ clinics.

“I eventually became an adolescent nurse specialist and helped set up the Centre for Youth Health with Dr Peter Watson who was the first Adolescent Medicine specialist in Aotearoa.”

Watson encouraged Clark to return to academia to develop research and writing skills. She earned her masters at the University of Auckland and her PhD at the University of Minnesota. There, she focused on protective factors for the mental health of at-risk rangatahi Māori.

But her time in the US brought profound challenges, including a serious car accident that led to the amputation of her leg.

“I was really mokemoke for home,” she recalls. “I missed my whānau, but I was close to the finish line. Sometimes, I look at my students and think, ‘I literally lost a leg; you can do this!’”

Returning to Aotearoa in 2008 with her PhD, Clark got a job at the University of Auckland’s School of Nursing as a senior lecturer.

Since then, she has built a research partnership with the Adolescent Health Research Group, a team of interdisciplinary researchers who have provided youth health insights impacting policy, clinical practice, and programmes .

Clark co-led the Youth12 and Youth19 national health surveys and recently led a Health Research Council project exploring the influence of whanaungatanga on rangatahi Māori outcomes.

Currently, she’s leading a Cure Kids research programme aimed at mental health prevention strategies for rangatahi Māori.

Looking back, Clark is grateful for her mentors and envisions a future where Māori researchers prioritise community connection and mātauranga Māori.

“We live in a very individualistic society, and I hope future generations embrace our strengths as a community and are more compassionate toward each other.

“Academia is a competitive space, and it shouldn’t be. Lives are impacted by what we do.

“By putting community at the centre, we can hope for sustainable change and begin to decolonise our ideas around help and support. No one should have to do it alone.”