Hon Carmel Sepuloni

Minister for Social Development

7 November 2018

The Government is investing $15.379 million from Budget 2018 so that family violence service providers can work with whānau and families to break intergenerational cycles of abuse through post-crisis support, says Minister of Social Development Carmel Sepuloni.

“New Zealand has the worst rate of partner and family violence rates in the world and family violence deaths account for around 40 percent of all homicides and related offences. It is clear that we need to do more to address intergenerational violence in our families,” Carmel Sepuloni.

“We know that people affected by family violence often have entrenched trauma that takes time to work through.

“The family violence sector is telling us that short funding periods result in reactive and crisis focused support for families and not enough is done to support families and whānau to break cycles of violence and abuse.

“The Government is listening and will fund longer term family violence services so that providers can work with families and whānau to challenge those using violence to accept responsibility and change their behaviour.

“These new services will be called “Whānau Resilience” and will be designed with people in the regions so that programmes meet the needs of their communities and are more effective and are longer-term,” Carmel Sepuloni said.

Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice (Domestic and Sexual Violence Issues) Jan Logie welcomes the new services.

“These services are part of our work across government, with the family violence and sexual violence sectors, to unlock the solutions held within our communities,” says Jan Logie.

The Ministry of Social Development will be holding workshops across the country before the end of the year to discuss the details of this new investment with providers.

More information on the new funding plans can be found here.

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