Family Violence and Sexual Violence Service Provider Update - Special Budget Edition Kia ora koutou, Welcome to this special Budget edition of our newsletter. In this update you’ll find information about:
  • Overview of Wellbeing Budget’s Joint Venture package
  • Increase in funding for specialist sexual violence services
  • Funding boost for family violence prevention initiatives
  • Funding to improve the response to family violence
Published in Family Violence and Sexual Violence Service Provider newsletter

Overview of Wellbeing Budget’s Joint Venture package

The Government yesterday announced a package of new funding, as part of Wellbeing Budget 2019, dedicated to eliminating family violence and sexual violence in Aotearoa.

The first Joint Venture Budget package on family violence and sexual violence, will invest $320.9 million over four years, in five key areas:

  • Increasing investment in prevention ($47.8 million)
  • Safe, consistent and effective responses in communities ($84.3 million)
  • Growing specialist sexual violence services ($131.1 million)
  • Improving the Justice response to victims of sexual violence ($37.8 million)
  • Coordination across the Joint Venture to support new ways of working across government in partnership with communities and Māori ($20.0 million).

Announcing the package, the Government said that preventing and eliminating family violence and sexual violence is one of the greatest opportunities to improve wellbeing.

The funding will support initiatives across eight Joint Venture agencies working together to prevent and respond to family violence and sexual violence.

Any queries about particular work programmes should be directed to the agencies leading the work in those areas.

Read the Government’s media release

Find out more about the overall package

Increase in funding for specialist sexual violence services

The Government has announced that it will invest $131 million over four years toward expanding specialist sexual violence services.

Of this funding, $90.3 million has been allocated to MSD and $40.8 million to Oranga Tamariki to strengthen support for children, youth and adult victims/survivors and perpetrators of sexual violence, and their families and whānau.

The MSD and Oranga Tamariki funding will support the stabilisation and expansion of essential specialist sexual violence services and start to address gaps in the system response. It will ensure more stable and sustainable service provision, and support services to meet growing demand.

The investment will help to create a more integrated, efficient and responsive system for those affected by sexual violence, by continuing and building on sexual violence services implemented since Budget 2016. It will mean more people get the services they need, when they need them.

New funding is available for:

  • Sexual Harm Crisis Support Services, which include advocacy and support, emergency face-to-face sessions and crisis social work support.
  • Peer-to-peer and group support services for male survivors of sexual abuse.
  • Harmful Sexual Behaviour services, for the assessment and treatment of non-mandated adults exhibiting concerning or harmful sexual behaviour.
  • Concerning and Harmful Sexual Behaviour services, for the assessment and treatment of children and youth exhibiting concerning or harmful sexual behaviour.

Funding is available to develop the following new services:

  • A national service to support victims/survivors with a sexual violence case going through the criminal justice system (psycho-social court support). A pilot service has been operating in Auckland from 1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019.
  • Treatment for adults exhibiting concerning sexual ideation – an early intervention service that provides support for people who have harmful sexual thoughts or fantasies, but who have not yet acted on them (also operating as a pilot service from 1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019).
  • Kaupapa Māori specialist sexual violence services, to be developed by Māori for Māori and include comprehensive responses from prevention and early intervention through to long-term support.
  • Guidance for those who play key roles in the development and education of children and young people and who may observe early instances of sexually problematic behaviour.

Focus of funding (2019/20)

In 2019/20 the focus of the funding will be to ensure service continuity for victims/survivors and perpetrators of sexual violence. Funding for existing services in the next financial year will be allocated to providers following the same way it was previously allocated, subject to providers maintaining contract and accreditation requirements.

Sexual violence service providers will receive information in the next few days from their Partnering for Outcomes contract manager about the initial impact on their contracts.

Future contracting of sexual violence services (from July 2020)

We have started developing Stet programme of work to ensure we fund, procure and contract sexual violence services from July 2020 in a way that is integrated and sustainable.

We are committed to working closely with the sexual violence sector and other key stakeholders to develop a sustainable contracting approach that ensures that sexual violence services are available for all people affected by sexual violence.

Your input and specialist knowledge will be essential. We encourage anyone with an interest in building a more effective sexual violence service system to get involved in the process.

We will keep you updated via this newsletter on opportunities to get involved in this work.

More information

Find out more about sexual violence services

Find out more about the new funding for sexual violence services

If you have further questions, please contact your Contract Manager

Funding boost for family violence prevention initiatives

The Government has increased its investment in three innovative MSD initiatives that are working to prevent family violence by changing the attitudes, beliefs, norms and behaviours that sustain violence, and by supporting community-led responses.

The increased funding – of $30,750 million over four years – will go toward the following initiatives:

  • E Tū Whānau – a kaupapa Māori initiative to positively change behaviour, attitudes and norms as a means to improve wellbeing and reduce family violence. E Tū Whānau also works with refugee and migrant communities as they value the strength-based approach and the focus on increasing wellbeing.
  • Pasefika Proud – a social change initiative ground in Pacific values, that works with the eight key Pacific nationalities in New Zealand in order to prevent family violence.
  • The Campaign for Action on Family Violence – which includes the current It’s not OK campaign, refocused on supporting positive behaviour change for men using violence, and a new campaign focused on safe relationships for young people

This investment will enable us to scale up, strengthen and further evaluate what is working well and making a positive difference for families and communities across New Zealand.

Funding for specific initiatives

The Budget investment will enable us to:

  • increase the number of partnerships with iwi and communities, and increase the depth and penetration of current partnerships
  • respond to the need in regions that currently have no investment and change-ready communities (Kiribati and Tuvalu for instance)
  • develop new communications, including TV advertising, and digital and social media campaign strategies for It’s not OK – specifically focusing on changing the behaviour of men using violence
  • develop a new campaign focussed on safe and respectful relationships for young people, including countering the impacts of pornography
  • carry out formative research, testing and evaluation.

Find out more about our family violence prevention initiatives

Find out more about the new funding for family violence prevention

Funding to improve the response to family violence

The Budget package allocated $84.3 million over four years to improve the response to family violence.

Most of this funding is going toward extending and learning from existing community-based pilots (Integrated Safety Response and Whāngaia Nga Pa Harakeke) and other initiatives to build family violence capability and regional support.

In addition, $2.8 million has been allocated for the extension of all Family Violence Response Coordination (FVRC) contracts for 12 months, to 30 June 2020, while work is undertaken with communities on a community-led, government-enabled response to family violence.

The FVRC Fund aims to prevent family violence by enabling local community and government organisations to collectively develop an integrated and strategic approach to family violence in their communities.

During the next year, the Joint Venture Business Unit will work with organisations holding these contracts to inform what the new system may look like and what future system support roles may be like.

If you have any queries, please contact your contract manager.

If you have any queries, about sexual violence service development, please contact us at CI_Sexual_Violence_Services@msd.govt.nz. For queries about the family violence work programme, please contact us at Family_Violence_CPP@msd.govt.nz

By Ministry of Social Development
Published in Family Violence and Sexual Violence Service Provider newsletter
X20 May 2019