Children's Flexi Fund

Photo of three kids having a relaxing afternoon. Photo credit Charlein Gracia from Unsplash

As part of Budget 2020, Police and Oranga Tamariki secured dedicated funding for children's services. 

The portion allocated to New Zealand Police is being used to provide services and support to enhance children, tamariki, and rangatahi wellbeing following family harm. This funding is managed by the Mental Health Education and Resource Centre and is accessible through an application process.

The Children's Flexi Fund is designed to address immediate needs and provide services or support for children, tamariki, and rangatahi (up to and including age 18), who are experiencing family harm and identified as requiring support.

The purpose of this fund is to enhance children/ tamariki / rangatahi wellbeing (following family harm) directly or indirectly through the purchase of one-off or timebound goods or services.

Eligible children / tamariki / rangatahi

Children and young people who can receive services funded through this initiative include:

  • Children, tamariki, and rangatahi up to and including 18 years old
  • Those involved in family harm episodes (in any capacity)
  • Children who have been notified to Family Violence Interagency Response (FVIARs), Whāngaia Ngā Pā Harakeke (WNPH) sites, or Integrated Safety Response (ISR) sites.
  • Children with a history of family harm

Additionally, funding is available for non-resident children who are involved in family harm episodes that occur within New Zealand.

Eligible Applicants

The following are eligible applicants for flexi funding:

  • Kaiāwhina/Kaipupuri working with a family or whānau
  • Police Family Harm Intervention Teams or their equivalent
  • Plan Leads, who are agency leads tasked with managing a Family Safety Plan as part of a multi-agency family violence response
  • FVIARs Agency Leads
  • Police staff working with families or whānau, including School Community Officers (SCOs) and those involved in Alternative Action Plans
  • Oranga Tamariki or other government agency child advocates, or their equivalents, who are supporting families or whānau where family harm has been identified
  • Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) or Iwi working with families or whānau affected by family violence
  • Advocates for children, such as family lawyers or lawyers representing children

The eligibility criteria are intentionally broad. If you’re unsure whether you or your agency qualifies, please contact the NZ Police National Family Harm Prevention Team at cff@police.govt.nz.

Application Guidance

Eligible Applicants:
Please ensure that applications come from eligible applicants (listed above)

Child Well-being Focus:
We ask that each application prioritises the well-being of the child who requires funding. It’s important that the needs of the child are at the centre of the request.

Family and Whānau Involvement:
We encourage collaboration with the child’s family or whānau. Their voice should be included in the application.

Limited Timeframe:
Funding requests specifically for service provision be within a period of three months. Ongoing or indefinite support is not available through this funding.

Duplication of Existing Funds:
Applications should not relate to existing funding or funded services or supports that are available elsewhere or from another agency, for example the Extraordinary Care Fund

Restrictions for Organisations:
Please note that applications should not be made by organisations to fund their own services.

Cost Evidence:
For transparency, a quote or proof of the amount being requested should be included with the application. Where funding is paid directly to the applicant’s organisation, a confirmation receipt of purchase must be provided following the application approval and the goods being purchased.

Services for Children:
If funding relates to services rather than goods, the service provider must have a Child Protection Policy in place and meet the safety check requirements outlined in the Children’s Act 2014.

How to apply

The Children’s Flexi Fund is currently awaiting confirmation of its FY allocation and is not accepting applications at this time. The fund will reopen for submissions once the new allocation has been confirmed. Please check back for updates.

Frequently Asked Questions

What type of support or service can be provided?

This requires some thought to be given to the individual needs of each child/tamariki/rangatahi. Each child/tamariki/rangatahi will have diverse and possibly complex needs that require addressing. Supports and services must be designed to improve wellbeing and must not relate to existing funding or funded services/supports that are available elsewhere or from another Agency. An example of services that can be provided are short term trauma focussed counselling or youth mentoring programmes.

Where the funding relates to purchase of goods, please provide an overview of how this will enhance the child / tamariki / rangatahi wellbeing.

You can refer to this Case Study Pack to see some examples of how funding has been spent.

Who can apply for funding?

The list of who can apply is above. If you wish to apply but you do not think you are an eligible applicant, please check with the NZ Police National Family Harm Prevention team cff@police.govt.nz to see if an application can be progressed.

What are the benefits of flexi-funding?

Flexi-funding enables the purchase of services not funded through other means. Flexi funding can help access to services or responses where it would otherwise be difficult or impossible to do so.

Many of the families and whānau experiencing family violence do not have the funds to access services on their own accord. A flexi fund process ensures that everyone can get the services they need. Flexi-funding also enables tailored services to be provided where specific needs of children, tamariki or rangatahi are identified. Each child, tamariki or rangatahi may have complex or different needs from others. Flexi funding enables the right service to be sought and funded, based on individual requirements. This has benefits for all families and whanau. In particular,where there are diverse cultural or bespoke needs.

What are the expected benefits of the flexi-funding approach and how will it be tracked?

Flexi funding provides flexibility to meet individual needs of children, tamariki and rangatahi. No one person is the same and each has different needs and flexi funding allows for diversity of approaches The funding is being tracked through a robust evaluation process. Evaluation processes have been designed to enable system learning, and drive ongoing improvement in the delivery of services and responses.

In 2021 a rapid process evaluation was completed on the fund by Allen & Clarke (PDF, 652KB). The findings identified that the Childrens Flexi Fund fills an important gap for prevention-related needs and that flexi funding provides a unique opportunity for Police to positively engage with families and whānau. Other aspects highlighted included potential administration related areas for improvement, including the introduction of an online application portal.

In January 2024, an outcomes evaluation was completed by Allen + Clarke (PDF, 2.7MB). This evaluation sought to assess reach, efficiency, and looked to identify improvements that could be made to better achieve outcomes sought by the fund.

The evaluation found that service providers favoured the fund for its flexibility and quick distribution to those in need. It also confirmed that the fund significantly contributes to the well-being of children and young people. Additionally, the evaluation emphasized how the flexi fund is strengthening positive relationships between Police and communities.

What additional funding did Oranga Tamariki receive?

Oranga Tamariki received funding into Vote Children as part of Budget 2020. This was used to “top up” existing providers of services for children. The ‘top up’ was designed to enable better responses to children experiencing family violence and enable more collaboration between those providers and the family violence response sites such as FVIARs, WNPH and ISR.

Please note, that where an agency has been ‘topped up’ by Oranga Tamariki, that agency can still make an application to the flexi fund to support a child / tamariki / rangatahi.