Much needed Mini Van for Family charity

Last year Child Youth & Family (CYFs) received 146,657 notifications, which resulted in 19,623 substantiated cases of abuse. In Canterbury alone, CYFs received 13,509 notifications. Many of the children behind these statistics face the possibility of being removed from their families. We predominantly work with families who reach this threshold.

Home & Family provided 3313 bed nights and supported 62 individuals on our residential parenting programme.

How amazing is that!!??

The minivan they have at the moment is on its last legs.. It’s used constantly for picking up families, taking children to school, preschool, doctor's appointments, going food shopping (when teaching families how to budget properly), taking the families on outings, etc. It definitely won’t last much longer.

We need to raise $420,000 each year to fund our programmes, which is a challenge in itself, and the van would sit outside of this amount.

Thank you so much for reading, caring and giving

Much love

Chrystal xxxx

A little more about the Charity

Home & Family Society Christchurch

Home & Family is an independent Christchurch based Incorporated Society that works with children, youth, adults, and families facing barriers to positive outcomes in their lives.

Our vision is that ‘all children live in homes with whanau/family who cherish them, keep them safe, and nurture their potential’.

Home & Family has been in operation for over 115 years It was originally established as the Society for the Protection of Women and Children. The actions of the Society brought about significant social and political change and undoubtedly altered today’s society for the better. This family focused, forward thinking still drives Home & Family today.

Today, Home & Family’s mission is to create environments for positive change. We do this by offering two streams of social service, a residential parenting programme and counselling service.

The demand for our services is increasing daily. We see this in the number of enquiries, referrals and in the numbers on our wait lists. Evidence of the need is seen in the number of people seeking assistance, and also in the variety of points of referrals. Both services on offer satisfy a great community need.

Counselling Service:

Home & Family have seven counsellors working with children, young people, individuals, couples and families. They are one of very few agencies who offer counselling to children. In fact, over fifty per cent of the Home and Family counselling work is with children, who receive counselling through play therapy. Some children are as young as three.

Counsellors work to strengthen resilience, self-esteem, and relationships, and work through issues including anger, depression, anxiety, grief, loss and trauma. Counsellors also work with those that have been a witness to or a victim of domestic violence, physical and/or sexual abuse.

Home & Family see amazing transformations in the lives of those they counsel. They are able to move on from the challenges of their current situations, grow and thrive.

In the last financial year Home & Family provided 2,134 counselling sessions, with 279 people benefiting directly from our counselling services.

Home & Family are privileged to be restoring a grade 1, category 1 heritage building in the Christchurch CBD. This beautiful building, when restored, will become home to our offices and counselling service. There is something incredibly special about this story and the opportunity to weave together heritage and social history that is so significant to our community.

Parenting Programme:

Home & Family’s residential parenting programme provides 24-hour supervised accommodation for parents and their children. This service focuses on situations where out of home placements for the children are being considered. Parents take part in supervised life-skills training to learn strategies for safe and nurturing parenting of children. During this time the entire family unit also has access to the counselling service.

Our property in Christchurch provides a secure environment for mothers and their children. This programme gives Home & Family the opportunity to see what would be best for the family as a whole with the welfare of children as the priority in all decision making.

Research confirms that children are better off in the care of their own family. Home & Family are committed to keeping children with their families, while empowering the parents with the tools and confidence to parent successfully.