A Christchurch youth trust is one of 132 providers across New Zealand that have had their funding cut by Oranga Tamariki.

The Youth Alive Trust had been running holiday programmes for at-risk youth for over 10 years.

It was a government initiative, aimed at providing positive and physical experiences for young people in lower socio-economic areas, who may not have had access to other holiday activity options.

The trust ran 36 programmes for around 2,000 young people and was contracted to provide activities for 160 young people per year.

However, the trust’s funding was discontinued by Oranga Tamariki.

Youth Alive Trust Manager James Ridpath expressed his frustration, stating that “our programmes are classed as ‘early intervention’ to help prevent young people falling off the edge or even getting close to it, by providing wellbeing support.”

He said “our OT advisor verbally told us they were getting more ‘bang for buck’ from our programme than most others, but their hands were tied by the new direction and head office had to make some tough decisions.”

Ridpath said the trust’s programmes attracted a large variety of young people, some of whom were in the OT system, but many that weren’t.

Ridpath said, “we believe the government could get more value for its money by investing in more generic early intervention programmes, which would save money in the long term.”

However, Oranga Tamariki’s Deputy Chief Executive Darrin Haimona explained that the decision to cut funding was based on a need to focus investment on the higher needs of tamariki and whānau supported by Oranga Tamariki.

“Oranga Tamariki is currently going through a transformational change as it works toward the new strategic direction outlined in the Future Direction Plan.

“We are making fundamental changes to the way we operate, including transferring funding and decision-making to Māori and communities so they can help children and their families in ways they know will work. Part of this future direction includes changes to the way we align our funding.”

Haimona said “as part of its ongoing review of funding, Oranga Tamariki made the decision to discontinue funding to Youth Alive Trust for holiday programmes.

“The review in 2022 initially proposed changes to funding contracts with 187 provider organisations nationally. After feedback from communities and from the providers, changes were made to the funding of 132 providers, involving around $5 million in the 2022/23 year. 

“Decisions were made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account tamariki and whānau needs, and followed feedback and proposals from providers and the community.”

 Every year Oranga Tamariki provides around $500m in funding to 600 NGOs, strategic partners and communities to help deliver services that support children and young people, these services include prevention and early support. 

But Ridpath said Billions of dollars were spent on supporting young people between the hours of 9am – 3pm – through education. But very little was spent on young people between 3pm – 9pm, apart from crime prevention.

“We need more youth centres, running more activities, providing more options and creating greater wellbeing for all our young people.”