Family Start takes to the street

‘Hands off Family Start’ was the call at a rally last week as supporters retaliated to the Government’s decision to cut funding to the organisation.

Supporters lined the streets outside the Family Start office in Quarantine Rd with placards, leaving little doubt about their view of the funding cuts and receiving plenty of toots in support.

Family Start is an early-intervention programme that provides support for pregnant women and young families in their homes to ensure the health and safety of the baby.

The national organisation has 14 whānau workers between Nelson, Motueka and Golden Bay and it has said the funding cuts will lead to less families and their babies being supported.

However, the Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, says reports about frontline cuts are incorrect.

She says the same amount of taxpayer money is being used, but in a better way, by transferring funding from organisations that are under-delivering, to organisations and services that can deliver.

In the case of Family Start, she says the national organisation receives more than $30 million of taxpayer funding.

She says, if funding has been withdrawn from a provider it is because the provider has been under-delivering the services that children and young people need, or other providers are better placed to deliver those services. Or it is just not core business.

At Family Start in Nelson, whānau worker Shelley Wilson says the Children’s Minister’s number crunching is wrong and Family Start is delivering. She says the minister is just working on numbers without realising the increasing complexity within families which requires more time with social workers.

“I don’t think the minister is well enough informed about how the organisation works. This is an economic recession and families are becoming more and more complex.”

The organisation expects a 25 per cent cut in funding which in Nelson-Tasman could mean up to 50 families that need help won’t get it. But Shelley concedes they still don’t know if the cuts will affect frontline staff and if so, how many, which means uncertainty hangs over them.

She is also disappointed the Children’s Minister was in Nelson and did not call into the office to discuss the proposed cuts.

“I’m really disheartened Karen Chhour had been in Nelson providing funding for another agency but didn’t have the courtesy to come and catch up with us. We would have helped her understand what the grass roots of the organisation is delivering. She would have driven past us.”

The Children’s Minister has also accused the last Labour Government of allowing Oranga Tamariki to be a “cash cow” for community service providers who said they would provide services, then didn’t.

Now, she says, Oranga Tamariki will only pay up to 70 per cent of the maximum value of a contract until the services have been provided in full.

“Providers need to get used to the idea they’re only going to be paid for the services that are provided to children and young people in need.”

On the other side, Shelley says Family Start in Nelson needs more funding, not less, to help more families on its waiting list.

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