WHAKATAUKI
He toka tū moana arā he toa rongonui. Your strength is like a rock that stands in raging waters.
AGM JOINT CHAIR
+ CEO REPORT
Tēnā koutou katoa,
The last 12 months has been a landmark year for Family Action. With short notice and great team effort we signed a lease and organised the move to our new premises in Universal Drive that will see us settled for many years to come. We now have plenty of space for our work plus have been able to offer rooms to other community groups. It is a huge step up in working conditions for our staff and clients.
In recognition of our commitment to diversity we were approached by the Ministry of Social Development to be one of three accessible refuges in the country. This is an exciting project that will not only see our refuge upgraded but offers extensive training to our team. We look forward to completion of this project in 2025.
We applied and received funding from the Ministry of Ethnic Communities and will be delivering bespoke education sessions within the Ethnic community over the next year.
The Family Harm SAMS Table scoping project is complete, and we are pleased to now sit on the SAMS table with our partner agencies. Into 24/25 we hope to enable Mana Whenua participation and continue to strengthen our positive relationship with Te Kawerau ā Maki.
Our relationship with Te Kawerau ā Maki has been a highlight of the year for everyone. The team have really enjoyed the training and opportunities to explore their own relationships with Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
We have recommenced our connection to Fair Food and are pleased to be able to offer our clients regular opportunities to top up their cupboards from our Pataka Kai.
All these projects and changes are alongside our already busy services, and we would like to commend the entire team for their positive can-do approach to the mahi which sees the agency consistently deliver for our funders but more importantly to our community.
MICHELLE CLAYTON // CEO
LINDA COOPER // Chair
We would like to acknowledge our staff, our supporters and partner agencies. Special mention to the NZ Police for their enduring confidence and relationship with the organisation; to Give a Kid a Blanket for providing such amazing resources for our clients with very little notice; and to Te Kawerau ā Maki for their wise guidance and aroha for our team and our clients/whānau.
Huge thanks to our committed Trustees for another year’s sterling work, Tevita Funaki, Kathryn Lawlor, Rachel Morris-Jarvis, Rachael Chandra, Rehana Sher and Josie Wall.
As we navigate changing times, we will no doubt face some challenges. However, we remain focused and committed to serving the West Auckland Community into 2025.
Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
Linda Cooper // Chair
Michelle Clayton // CEO
NGĀ MIHI
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS
Whānau Toa l Strong Flourishing Families
MISSION
Safety, Recovery, Renewal
VALUES
Whānaungatanga
We build relationships and act in ways that strengthen others.
Tino Rangatiratanga
We actively listen and provide information to enable people to fully participate in decision making.
Pono
We act with integrity taking responsibility for what we say and what we do while striving for best practice.
Manaakitanga
We show respect, generosity and care for others.
STRATEGIC AIMS
1. Work to honour our obligations as a Te Tiriti partner.
2. Provide effective therapeutic and supportive interventions that empower and strengthen our diverse community.
3. Develop strategic partnerships to support our services to clients, regionally and nationally.
4. Be an organisation of choice by creating an equitable and inclusive environment that attracts and retains highly skilled employees.
5. Maintain a strong governance base with secure funding.
11,106
2147 40% NZ POLICE
3180
67%
Number of referrals Number of engaged clients
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
Clinical Crisis Manager
Family Harm
Clinical Lead
CEO
Business Services Manager
Clinical Crisis Manager
Sexual Harm
Clinical Manager Counselling CHOICE Co-ordinator
Business Development Co-ordinator
ACC/Finance Co-ordinator
Facilities + Safety Co-ordinator Office Co-ordinator
HR Co-ordinator
Crisis Social Workers
Refuge Co-ordinator
Refuge Support Worker
Crisis Social Workers
After Hours Support Workers
Counsellors
Whānau Resilience Kaimahi
ACC Providers (Contractors)
CRISIS SERVICES FAMILY HARM
Our family harm team have had some exciting changes and opportunities this past year. We were contracted by Oranga Tamariki to have one of our social workers seconded to work across the Westgate and Waitakere Oranga Tamariki offices and provide family harm expertise to the staff working in these offices over a 10-month period. While this mahi has ended now, the role added significant value in engaging with and supporting whānau who are engaged with Oranga tamariki. We have recently added a SAM table liaison. This new role sits at the Waitemata SAM table to help triage family harm Police callouts & ensures each whānau are referred to the most appropriate agency for their needs.
We are working collaboratively with the Youth MDCAT team to support whānau through a Family Harm lens and attend Oranga Tamariki’s Pathways meeting weekly. Students bring fresh perspectives for our practice and we appreciate their quality of their questions. They quickly become part of the team and we are always sad to say goodbye.
The team receive MOJ strengthening Safety Service referrals which increase the safety of victim-survivors, and with the Whānau Protect contract we can offer intensive safety support.
Feedback from our Refuge clients says that it is a warm and comfortable environment for our whānau that have escaped dangerous situations. We have developed projects to support us with being more child-focussed. These include building a swing set in the backyard, seeking out weekend child-friendly activities for our whānau in refuge and creating a refuge story book for children that use age-appropriate language to explain why they are in refuge & important things they need to know.
Earlier this year we commissioned Impact Lab to produce a GoodMeasure Report. This report highlights the social value provided by our Family Harm suite or services, which include our Family Harm Crisis Services, Whanau Protect and Women’s Refuge.
The GoodMeasure Report concluded that over the previous financial year our social value equated to $6,218,076 worth of work; resulting in a $1:$6.80 social return on investment.
NUMBER OF REFERRALS
NUMBER OF ENGAGED CLIENTS
85%
ENGAGEMENT RATE
CRISIS SERVICES SEXUAL HARM
The sexual harm team provides specialised crisis support for survivors of sexual harm in West Auckland. Our support is accessible 24/7 all year round and available to sexual harm survivors and their whānau immediately after a harm has occurred, or to those who have suffered historic sexual harm and are now wanting to report to the police or access counselling. Our crisis social workers aim to provide client-led support that addresses not only the psychological and emotional trauma but also the physical and material needs. This includes working with survivors on safety planning and advocating for them to access supports and services available in the community.
This year we have continued to focus on improving our services to children and youth who have been sexually harmed alongside ensuring whānau have the tools to be able to support their child/ren to heal. Upskilling our team on how we can best support the diverse communities that we work with has also been a key focus with several social workers attending workshops and trainings with Pasifika, Asian and Indian providers. We continue to hold and develop new networks in the West Auckland rohe to ensure that our whānau have access to the right supports at the right time.
The coming year will see the sexual harm team turning our attention towards supporting our ethnic communities to be able to understand and respond to sexual harm. We aim to do this by delivering psycho-education sessions that are tailored to our communities. This offering is for organisations, community groups, and parents and caregivers of children who have been sexually harmed. We are also involved in delivering youth groups with local high schools.
We continue to be well supported by I’ve Got Your Backpack with regular deliveries of care packs for sexual harm survivors (children, youth, men, and women).
We provide these to clients when we meet them at Forensic medical appointments, and they have been very well received. We continue to draw on the strengths of collaborative partnerships across the sexual violence sector to ensure we have a responsive and coordinated approach.
NUMBER OF REFERRALS
NUMBER OF ENGAGED CLIENTS
ENGAGEMENT RATE
COUNSELLING ADULT + CHILD + YOUTH
The counselling services at Family Action offers free therapeutic supports for victim-survivors of family harm and sexual harm.
Our counsellors work with children/tamariki from 5-years old, youth/rangatahi and adults. We ensure our clients’ voice guides the counselling process.
We actively seek feedback from our clients so we can develop our supports to cater to our West Auckland community with commitment to safety, empowerment, and hope. Our services have been in high demand as our community experiences the challenge with the increasing cost of living. This year our focus has been towards continuous improvement. Our counsellors are actively participating in evidenced based practices, implementing their ongoing training and development–we can offer a wide range of therapeutic modalities tailored to individuals and whānau.
We continue to strengthen our creative approaches to working with children/tamariki between 5 and 8-years old with a dedicated play therapy space and a dedicated art therapy space (made possible by our new premises).
We constantly adapt and improve our groups:
• Wāhine Toa: a 12-week psychoeducation and mindfulness programme for women who have experienced family harm. This group is extremely well received with fantastic feedback for the facilitators.
• Rangatahi Toa: a 16-week programme that provides a space for youth to explore themselves and their world, and gain skills to support them through their journey. We work closely with school pastoral care services and deliver the group on site in schools.
We are in the early stages of developing groups for those who are protected persons referred specifically for access to a safety programme
Since the introduction of our CHOICE process, engagement for individual counselling has improved by 18% for adults (up to 78%) referred into counselling and by 12% (up to 74%) for child and youth. These figures are in striking contrast for people referred who are not offered CHOICE due to contract requirements where the engagement rate is 52% for both adults and child and youth.
POIPOIA TE KAKANO, KIA PUAWAI. NURTURE THE SEED AND IT WILL BLOSSOM.
KEY STATISTICS
ADULT
324
NUMBER OF REFERRALS
KEY STATISTICS CHILD/YOUTH
202
NUMBER OF REFERRALS
226
NUMBER OF ENGAGED CLIENTS
139 70% 69%
NUMBER OF ENGAGED CLIENTS
ENGAGEMENT RATE ENGAGEMENT RATE
ACC SENSITIVE CLAIMS
Family Action holds an ACC sensitive claims contract to provide long term therapeutic support to people who have experienced sexual trauma.
This mahi is completed by a team of highly skilled independent contractors that includes Psychologists, Counsellors, Psychotherapists, Art Therapists and Social workers.
In the last year we have had two significant changes:
First, Family Action has moved its ACC client database and invoicing to CMS (Client Management System) – tracking important information and enabling invoicing to be more efficient for both the ACC Contractor and Family Action.
Secondly, after 10 years ACC has put its ISSC (Integrated Services for Sensitive Claims) out for re-tender in May 2024. All suppliers and all providers had to reapply to be able to continue to work under the new Sensitive Claims contract. Thanks to Anna for the support getting this tender completed for Family Action to be able to continue to provide this support to our clients.
From 1 December 2024 this service will be known as ‘Sensitive Claims Service’ with the current therapy entitlements remaining until 31 May 2025.
The new look Sensitive Claims Service will have tailored services to focus on a holistic, outcomesfocused approach to client wellbeing, which can involve the use of multidisciplinary teams to support the client to achieve their goals.
There will be three pathways instead of the current two–this will enable the client and provider to tailor the package of care to ensure that the mix of supports i.e. other therapeutic services and treatments which best support the client to achieve their goals.
We said goodbye to some of our ACC providers for a number of reasons –retirement, moving out of the Auckland area or other ACC suppliers. We have also welcomed new providers filling therapeutic gaps.
Thanks to all who continue support the client and do this important mahi in our communities.
Additional funding from MOJ has allowed us to help our clients in new ways.
42
FAMILIES RECEIVED FUNDING
72
TAMARIKI/RANGATAHI SUPPORTED
We moved into our new offices in August. Our new space is more accessible for the community and we love our fresh new look.
$46,008 received in grants to support clients with uniforms, school expenses, therapeutic support, household items...
NZ Police Children’s Services and Support Flexi Fund: $35,264
JR McKenzie Trust: $10,743
Our partnership with Te Kawerau Ā Maki continues to bloom and we have been able to have four wananga led by the amazing Josie and Robyn.
QUIZ NIGHT
With the support of Oratia Bowls Club, we ran a very successful Quiz Night fundraiser which helped us to support our families at Christmas with food and gifts.
FAIR FOODS
We rekindled our relationship with Fair Foods and are now able to offer our clients free kai every Wednesday.
EVENT
CELEBRATIONS
Our team came together to celebrate many occasions across the year, including Pink Shirt Day, Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, Christmas, Eid, Chinese New Year, Pride Month, White Ribbon Day, Matariki and so much more.
THE FUTURE
We provided placements for 13 students, including Psychology, Social Work, Psychotherapy and Criminology students.
COMMUNITY
PARTNERSHIP
We would like to give special acknowledgment to Te Kawerau Ā Maki for their guidance and tautoko.
ASB
Community Law Centre
Community Waitakere
Counselling Services Centre
Cue Creative
Essen
Fono
Te Whatu Ora
Give a Kid a Blanket
Good Bitches Baking
HELP
Henderson Budgeting Services
House of Gabriel
Immigration NZ
Kainga Ora
Kindred Family Services
Life Church Christmas Boxes
Man Alive
Nurturing Families
Pet Refuge
Police
Respect
Te Hunga Tauwhiro I te Kura (SWiS)
Te Whānau o Waipareira
Tu Wāhine
Victim Support
Vision West
WINZ
Woven Earth
Youth Justice
Henderson High School
St Dominics College
Vis Able Odyssey
I’ve Got Your Back Pack
JR McKenzie Trust
Pohutukawa
Te Puaruruhau
Care Waitakere
Fair Foods
Ranui Baptist Church
