Negotiations between the two parties started last May, and have reached a standstill over annual wage increases.
An Employment Relations Authority decision released yesterday described ''serious difficulties'' in the bargaining process.
These included ''hate mail and inappropriate responses over social media'' that Anglican Family Care manager Nicola Taylor reportedly received after media coverage of the negotiations.
Both the Public Service Association and AFC applied for the facilitation in early February.
The negotiations flared up in December 2014 when Ms Taylor abruptly suspended 27 PSA members in Alexandra, Balclutha, and Dunedin.
The members were involved in low-level industrial action, such as refusing to train new staff members and other work-to-rule measures.
Their suspension was reversed after they agreed to drop the industrial action, but negotiations remained unresolved.
AFC manager Kathy Richards, who has temporarily taken over as acting director while Ms Taylor is on leave, said because the organisation had not received a base funding increase for six years it could not afford the wage increase the PSA wanted.
The PSA is claiming a cost-of-living wage increase of 3.5%. PSA assistant secretary Kerry Davies said the union ''understand[s] funding constraints in the sector''.
''We've suggested to Anglican Family Care that's something we can work jointly on, together. But that doesn't mean our members shouldn't receive regular pay increases,'' she said.
''We're not talking about huge amounts of money.''
Ms Richards said when the negotiations began last May, AFC was undergoing a ''major structural overhaul'' that resulted in the departure of four employees and was ''unsettling for staff''.
She attributed some of the issues with the negotiations to the ''unsettling'' nature of the overhaul.
''Any kind of structural review of that size can't help but have an impact on staff,'' she said.
She also acknowledged that ''workers who are qualified social workers or qualified in other disciplines in those organisations are paid well below their equivalents in government agencies. That is a problem for us.''
Both parties agreed making a joint application for facilitation, and facilitation being approved, was cause for optimism.
''People felt really good about [the joint application for facilitation], and reassured that both parties were wanting to get a resolution,'' Ms Davies said.
