By Maia Ingoe of RNZ
- Oranga Tamariki has ended its contracts with 190 social service providers, saying they are underperforming
- A further 142 providers have had their funding reduced
- North Shore Women's Centre in Auckland is facing closure after its contract was cancelled
- Iwi provider E Tipu E Rea says whānau have been left "devastated" by the move
Auckland social service providers say they have been cut off at the knees by abrupt ends to their Oranga Tamariki funding, which they say will put vulnerable families at risk.
Oranga Tamariki has discontinued funding to 190 providers, saying they are underperforming or are operating at surplus.
A further 142 have had their funding reduced to align with service need.
North Shore Women's Centre has been providing care for women and tamariki fleeing domestic violence for 37 years. Its Oranga Tamariki contract was ended in June and it will run out of money to continue its work by May 2025, general manager Tracey Swanberg said.
Oranga Tamariki funding accounted for about 30 percent of the centre's budget.
"It's critical funding, as you can imagine, because all the other funding is pretty much hit and miss," Swanberg said.
The changes were disconcerting, she said.
"We've got over 90 years of institutional knowledge and experience between the counsellors and the social workers and community resource workers, we're really, really good at what we do. There's a loss to the institutional knowledge across the sector."
"Where are these women going to go? It's going to put massive pressure on other community agencies and government agencies."
The centre was contracted to provide social work services, including assessments and counselling targeted at vulnerable women with dependent children.
That included women dealing with family violence, mental health, poverty, disordered thinking, sexual violence, and suicidal ideation, the centre's operations manager and community resource worker Dawn Hutchinson said.
In the past year, 486 women with 460 tamariki in their care came through the centre.
Swanberg said the centre had a credible track record with Oranga Tamariki, and passed its last audit in February with "flying colours".
"They didn't give us any notice. They didn't give us any rationale at all."
E Tipu E Rea, a Ngāti Pāoa whānau services provider, supports parents as young as 16 and their tamariki.
Chief executive Zoe Whitika-Hawke said the group's work was critical as it prevented the need for Oranga Tamariki uplifts.
"We work to support their needs so that they can be the best parents they possibly can be, and there's no threat of their baby being uplifted by Oranga Tamariki. House them, make sure they're on the way to getting jobs, making sure that their mental health is fine to be able to think of their future and their baby's hauora, so they don't have to end up with Oranga Tamariki intervention.
"We think about it in return [on] investment framework, which is what the government's really keen on. We actually save them money, because stare care is expensive."
She said the decision was delivered with no warning - E Tipu E Rea was overperforming on the targets set by Oranga Tamariki and had received positive feedback.
"We went through all our reports, our feedback, our numbers, and we were over our numbers. We're meant to work with a certain number, and we were always over.
"I'm saddened by the fact that we were doing a great job, the return on investment was high, we were preventing uplifts.
"We're overperforming because we're dedicated to this mahi. We don't want our children to go to care."
Whitika-Hawke said with the teen parent services contract cut, the provider would be scrambling to find funds to cover its work - but was committed to continuing for as long as it could.
She said the whānau E Tipu E Rea worked with were "pretty devastated".
"We're looking at other opportunities, but there's going to be a gap in [the] support that we can give.
"We've always had waiting lists cause the need is great. Now, I don't know where they're going to go."
In a statement, Oranga Tamariki said it put children at the centre of its decision-making, above the funding expectations of providers.
It said funding changes were a result of its annual review of contracted provider funding.
Oranga Tamariki looked "line by line" through funded services and made decisions based on each provider's performance and the demand for it, the statement said.
