Families buckling under the stress of the festive season are urged to contact the Wakatipu Abuse Prevention Network (WAPN) before tension spirals into emotional or physical assault.
The Queenstown-based network was anticipating a busy first half of December, but a quiet second half and then a spike of clients seeking help by the end of January and into February, when the Christmas-New Year bills come in.
"The families we've had who have picked up the phone and made contact at an earlier stage are the ones we get better long-term results for," WAPN manager Tina Mongston, of Queenstown, said.
"They're the families that can work through some of the issues and put strategies in place. Some of those strategies might be around budgeting, counselling intervention. Some might be around parenting.
"That's what we're here for and we prefer them to ring us when things haven't turned into a physical assault situation."
The number of people using WAPN has increased steadily over the past decade, from 66 cases in 2002-03 to 522 in 2009-10.
A total of 308 clients had been referred through the network for 2010-11 to date, already almost double the number of referrals for the entire 2009-10 period.
There had been 71 cases in October alone, up from 33 in October 2009.
Emotional and psychological abuse was the most common form of abuse referred to WAPN. Every town had its own trends, but Ms Mongston believes there is a large number of alcohol-related incidents in the Wakatipu compared with other areas.
"We have a lot of isolation here. We live in an area where there aren't many families that have lived here for generations. There are a lot of families who have just moved here and they don't have other family support to fall back on.
"People come and go from Queenstown all the time, so maintaining long-term friendships for some people is quite hard to do."
WAPN has nine paid staff and seven volunteers based in Ballarat St, plus one paid staff member in Alexandra. Funding mainly comes from Child Youth and Family, Family and Community Services, Central Lakes Trust, Community Trust of Southland, Lottery Grants and the Ministry of Justice.
• Wakatipu Abuse Prevention Network 24-hour phone: 0508-440-255.
