Funding, Contracting and Approvals

We are also involved in a wide range of community focused initiatives aimed at looking after children and young people, strengthening families and building strong working relationships with providers.

Our funding and contracting teams work with approved organisations to provide social services for children, young people, families and communities.

They also support the development of new ways of working, to help build stronger communities and enable the community to provide better support for families and whānau.

The teams are regionally based, which means we’re able to identify local social service needs, and ensure we fund the best mix of services to meet the needs in each region. The teams also help develop joint local solutions to service needs.

The funding and contracting teams are responsible for funding planning, coordination of service delivery and the administration of the funding contracts.

If your organisation is interested in delivering a service aimed at caring for at-risk children or supporting young people, you will first need to speak to your regional funding advisor.

Family and Community Services also fund social service providers.

For more information on Funding and Contracting, please contact our regional advsors:

If you want to set up a new initiative, it’s really important to check with your local Funding and Contracting Team early in your programme development, to see whether there is a need for your initiative and whether there is unallocated funding available to support it.

Funding advisors will be looking for information from you on:

• how aligned your organisation is with what we are trying to achieve
• the area of need that your service targets
• your target client group and whether they are high priority for us
• whether your service provides the type of assistance we need to support the local community
• evidence of your success in helping your client group to improve their life outcomes
• the support and links you have in your community.

Funding advisors will also explain the various funding processes and timelines, and provide more general advice about funding.

Every organisation that receives funding from Child, Youth and Family goes through an approvals assessment process. The Standards for Approval uses two sets of standards to evaluate the quality of a provider and its ability to provide an effective service:

• business viability (including finance, monitoring and governance)
• programme quality (including client intake and assessment, client planning and services planning).

The Standards for Approval assesses the quality, management and administration of the providers services against consistent standards that meet legislative requirements.

We have regionally based approval teams who can advise you on the approval process.

To be successfully approved, organisations need to show that they meet the application criteria, and meet the requirements for policy and procedure around the business viability standards and the programme quality standards.  Applications need to be accompanied by completed police checks on staff and governance.

The Standards for Approval apply to most organisations, excluding the following:

• iwi social service
• cultural social service
• intercountry adoption service
• elder abuse and neglect prevention and coordination of intervention services.

If you are one of these organisations seeking approval, you will need to contact the local approvals team to find out more about the Standards for Approval that applies to you.

For more information about our approvals process, please contact our Approvals Team: