A Ki U

Relationships are everything! We fall in and out of love, we enter and exit partnerships of business, employment, and sports. Cultural partnerships are founded in treaties for which bi-culturalism is sought, hindered, pondered, and/or resisted by relationships. This chapter seeks to explain the science of processing such relationships from one Maori woman's perspective as an educator and practitioner of counselling and social work. A quality process is a social construction of interactions underpinned by quality principles. While relationships contribute much to the success of a process, the process must also be practice “friendly.” The test of an effective process like A Ki U is when it can be applied to a simple situation like a game of cards and still be effective in a complex situation, like relationships. Are most relationships not complex situations? This process for facilitation of well-being is called “A Ki U,” so named because of the five steps represented by each vowel of the Maori alphabet: A, E, I, O, U. The steps are simple, and simplicity is profound.