News from MSD - It's Not OK seed funding and updates on commissioning of services
Tue 10 Mar 2020
The Ministry of Social Development's (MSD) latest Kotahitanga newsletter includes updates from the It's Not OK campaign and on the commissioning of services.
Seed funding for ideas addressing family violence
The It’s Not OK Campaign is calling for "exciting or ground-breaking ideas" that could help reduce family violence in New Zealand. The campaign has new seed funding that is available for financial grants to address family violence. The grants are not limited to experts or people with past experience.
The March 2020 Kotahitanga newsletter describes the focus of the It's Not OK campaign:
"Our campaign is now focusing on preventing violence by men, who generally cause the most harm. We are concentrating on encouraging positive behaviour change in men, promoting safe and healthy relationships, and shifting harmful ideas around what it means to be a man, so that more of our men can be violence free."
It goes on to say the campaign is looking to "... partner with New Zealanders who have creative ideas and new ways of:
- improving the relationships men have with themselves, their partners, their children, their siblings and their mates, or
- creating environments that support men to be the best versions of themselves."
Commissioning of services in the social sector
The Kotahitanga newsletter also highlights that MSD, Oranga Tamariki, the Social Wellbeing Agency and other government agencies are working with non-government organisations and the philanthropic sector to look at commissioning of services in the social sector:
"The Future of Social Sector Commissioning work programme responds to longstanding issues raised by NGOs and philanthropic organisations about how government agencies approach commissioning services in the social sector.
The intention is to build on improvements made over the past few years, such as more use of longer-term contracts, common contracts across agencies, developing more sophisticated service cost models, and the expanded use of codesign and devolution in commissioning services."
More information
For related information see the full March 2020 Kotahitanga newsletter. Also see past newsletters and sign-up to receive Kotahitanga from MSD.
Related news
Social Service Providers Aotearoa and their members have written a joint letter to Ministers calling on the Government to address the NGO funding gaps in the 2020 Wellbeing budget.
In February 2020, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced that the Social Investment Agency would be replaced with a new approach, including renaming the agency the Social Wellbeing Agency.
MSD published Elder Abuse in Aotearoa: The role and current state of MSD’s Elder Abuse Response Services in December 2019.
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