For Immediate Release

MEDIA RELEASE

NGO Co-location Offers Opportunity to Better Support Families Living With Violence

Six Canterbury-based Non-Government Organisations (NGO) have formed a new alliance to enhance their support for children, women and men affected by violence by either fully or partially co-locating their services within the next two years.

The alliance, which includes He Waka Tapu, Aviva (formerly known as Christchurch Women’s Refuge), Barnardos, Family Help Trust, Relationships Aotearoa and START, all offer specialist services to individuals and families who are at risk of, or already affected by, violence. People affected by violence - particularly children - often need a range of support from different services, and co-location will improve their access to a suite of relevant services. Alliance agencies believe that co-location will thereby encourage earlier help-seeking and improve longer-term client outcomes. For the agencies it is also expected that co-location will mean shared and streamlined administrative functions and costs.

The alliance partners have recently received funding from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to appoint a Project Manager to move its co-location plans forward. “This type of collaboration between social service agencies, and also between NGOs and government, is precisely what our policy on Investing in Services for Outcomes is all about” says Murray Edridge, Deputy Chief Executive for Family and Community Services, MSD. “We all need to work together to achieve the best outcomes for families, whānau and communities and no single agency or organisation can do that alone.”

The alliance partners operate across the service continuum from prevention to earlier intervention, crisis management and wellbeing. In the last financial year they supported over 6,500 clients. “Our six agencies have come together because we believe we need to fundamentally reform our approach to supporting families living with violence” says Nicola Woodward, CEO of Aviva. “We want to work together to offer families integrated and holistic support, and reduce the complexity of current separate and parallel service pathways. We

also want to increase our ability to create new or improved service responses that address the needs of vulnerable children and their families. For our alliance, this means working together in more efficient and effective ways.”

The exact nature of co-location will be explored over the next 12 months but part of the vision is a community hub that will be used by a range of local agencies and which local people can also use as a community space.

The alliance partners, in partnership with the Good Shepherd New Zealand Trust, are already working together to develop and pilot a No Interest Loan Scheme (NILS) for Canterbury families who are affected by violence and are on low incomes.

Contact Aviva at www.avivafamilies.org.nz or by calling 0800 AVIVA NOW (0800 28482 669), free phone 24-hours a day.

--ENDS--

About Aviva
• Aviva supports New Zealanders to become their best, free from family violence, by providing a unique range of services to prevent family violence
• We support women, men and children – individually or as families - to overcome family violence
• We are an independent, local charity and were first established as Christchurch Women’s Refuge – New Zealand’s first women’s refuge – in 1973
• Aviva rebranded from the name Christchurch Women's Refuge in May 2013. Our new name expresses the spirit of positivity, potential and new life that underpins the services we provide and the way we offer them.

Our range of free family violence services designed to help people become – and stay – free from violence. They include:
• Free 24-hour phone support via 0800 Aviva Now (0800 28482 669)
• Temporary Safe House accommodation for women and children in the Christchurch Women's Refuge
• Individual support for women, children and men and referrals for support to other agencies or services
• Family safety planning to ensure practical steps towards enhanced safety
• Access to Ministry of Justice approved education programmes for women, children and men
• Followup with women and men named on Police Incident Reports
• Shine safe@home, a home security improvement service which enables women and children to remain safely in their own home
• ReachOut early intervention support for men who have perpetrated family violence
• Specialist peer support from women and men who have overcome family violence to those on their own journey away from violence.
• Community development, education and training
• No Interest Loans to those living with family violence and on low incomes - expected to be available October 2013.

© Scoop Media