New Christchurch alliance plans co-location to enhance support services

Six Christchurch NGOs plan to co-locate services to enhance their support for people affected by family violence.

The alliance, which include He Waka Tapu, Aviva Family Violence Services (formerly Christchurch Women's Refuge), Barnardos, Family Help Trust, Relationships Aotearoa and START, intend to have partially or fully co-located their services within the next two years. The co-location aims to "encourage earlier help-seeking and improve longer-term client outcomes".

Nicola Woodward, CEO of Aviva, said the Christchurch earthquakes have contributed to bringing the agencies together, due to some agencies having to relocate and a "pro-social innovation and change environment".

She said, "We want to work together to offer families integrated and holistic support, and reduce the complexity of current separate and parallel service pathways". She said the alliance would also enable development of "new or improved service responses that address the needs of vulnerable children and their families".

The alliance partners, in partnership with the Good Shepherd New Zealand Trust have already begun developing a No Interest Loan Scheme initiative for low-income Canterbury families affected by violence.

For more information visit the Aviva website.

Image: Community of People, Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)