The cuts to services run by charities Anglican Family Care and Mirror Services are among a wave of community children’s services across New Zealand hit by changes made by government agency Oranga Tamariki.
The agency warned charities in June cuts were coming but Minister for Children Karen Chhour said there was a "guarantee" frontline services would not be impacted.
More than a quarter of the funding for Dunedin’s Family Start service, delivered by Anglican Family Care, has been cut.
The service offers support to expecting parents and the parents of newborn and young children focusing on the health, safety and development of the child.
Anglican Family Care chairwoman Ruth Zeinert said the charity was "devastated by the impact on staff and frontline services".
The charity’s website said it could not accept new Family Start referrals while it worked through "a proposed reduction of staff".
The Public Service Association said the charity was proposing cutting its family support workers from nine to five and the service’s two team leaders to one. A counsellor would also go.
PSA assistant national secretary Melissa Woolley said the situation was "hard and sad evidence exposing the government’s blatant lie that frontline services will not be impacted ... very simply, fewer families needing help will be visited".
Mirror Services has lost a quarter of its funding for four fulltime equivalent staff at its Mirror Youth Day Programme, which helps young people aged 13 to 18 with alcohol and drug-use issues.
Oranga Tamariki’s funding paid for a whānau therapist, with funding for the other roles met by Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora.
The programme reaches about 32 vulnerable young people and their families a year. Up to eight young people, including those in the care of Oranga Tamariki, attend it four days a week for a term. Two young people have described it as giving them "the strength to keep going" and a "safe haven".
Mirror Services director Deb Fraser-Komene said the programme was a "minimum investment for preventing young people creating significant costs for the country down the track".
The whānau therapist role was important to maintain because a young person’s family was "pivotal in the young people’s lives".
Mirror Services had complained to Oranga Tamariki about the cut, but got no response from the agency.
Independent children’s monitor Arran Jones and children’s commissioner Dr Claire Achmad have also complained to Oranga Tamariki that charities across New Zealand are suffering frontline cuts for no given reason, and with no clarity given about how service need will be met elsewhere.
Mr Jones gave a deadline of last Friday for Oranga Tamariki to answer a long list of questions about the cuts. The deadline was not met and it has been extended to Friday.
Labour Ingrid Leary MP said it was "appalling to see frontline cuts squeezing already-stretched vital services" and that Ms Chhour, who is also Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, "doesn’t know what she is doing in her role".
Ms Chhour responded, reiterating these were "not frontline cuts". The Mirror Services’ programme was "not core business" and some providers of services such as Family Start were "national organisations receiving millions of dollars".
"Reductions to the Dunedin Anglican Family Care’s Family Start funding are consistent with the national approach," she said.
"Ultimately, it [Oranga Tamariki] must put the security and safety of the children in its care ahead of the security of the businesses run by its providers."
Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive Darrin Haimona said 337 services by 190 providers were being discontinued, 269 services by 142 providers were being reduced, and 1470 services by 451 providers were being contracted for next year.
A further 50 services had ended "naturally" and at least 50 were to be procured.
When pressed, Mr Haimona said that "while we are working through negotiations with individual providers and finalising contracts, we won’t be commenting publicly".
