The Government has announced a $10 million funding boost in next month's budget for specialist sexual violence services.© Radio New Zealand 2014
Social development minister Paula Bennett says the increase will provide immediate stability for specialist services to help address current funding shortfalls. Ms Bennett says the sector requires extra resourcing, especially for making 24 hour, seven-days-a-week crisis call-out and emergency counselling services available. She says the money will be used to support frontline crisis-response and community-based treatment services, as well as male victims and those accessing medical and forensic services.
A Parliamentary inquiry is currently looking into the funding of specialist sexual violence services.
Ms Bennett says she couldn't wait for the outcome of the inquiry.
"The need is so great now, to be honest I'd done a lot of work on my cabinet and to get them to this point, there was no way I was going to delay them for another six months!
"I knew I had a shot of getting a bit of money in this year's budget so I was going to grab it with everything I had."
The Parliamentary inquiry has been told the sector is severely under-resourced and has lost about $6 million a year since changes to ACC in 2011 when it cut funding for sex abuse counselling.
Funding welcome
A rape prevention trust says the Government's funding boost will help stop the loss of trained staff from the sector.
Executive director of Rape Prevention Education, Kim McGregor says the sector has been underfunded for many decades. She says there's been a high level of burnout and it's been difficult to hold on to specialist trained staff.
Ms McGregor says the extra funding will help stabilise the sector in the short-term.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/242981/sexual-violence-counselling-boost
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