MSD’s role in eliminating family and sexual violence

People in New Zealand experience unacceptably high rates of family violence and sexual violence.

Family violence and sexual violence cause significant and long-term harm to people, families, whānau, and communities and costs New Zealand billions of dollars every year.  

• If you are worried that you or someone you know may be experiencing family violence, support is available
• If you are worried that you or someone you know may be experiencing sexual violence, support is available
• If you are worried that you or someone you know may be experiencing elder abuse, support is available

Making a difference to family and sexual violence is an important part of MSD’s work. This work is complex. Family and sexual violence is often linked to other issues like housing, health, income, addiction, and food security – as well as the beliefs people hold about acceptable behaviours and roles for men, women and other genders in our relationships with each other.   

Eliminating family and sexual violence will help New Zealanders to live safe, connected, and healthy lives for generations to come and will contribute positively to other issues including financial independence, educational outcomes, physical and mental health, homelessness, and crime. 

MSD is part of a collective response addressing family and sexual violence

To eliminate family and sexual violence, government agencies, specialist service providers, communities, and tangata whenua need to work together and learn from each other.  

MSD is part of a collective response to eliminate family and sexual violence. We work in collaboration with community partners and other government agencies including those that are part of the Interdepartmental Executive Board for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence (IEB). The IEB brings together nine government agencies to support government strategy, policy, and investment to eliminate family and sexual violence.  

MSD’s work to address family and sexual violence focuses on three key outcomes

Getting help to people who need it: MSD funds around 200 providers across New Zealand to deliver specialist support to people who are impacted by family and sexual violence. We do not require people to meet any criteria to access the services we fund. We want to ensure that support is readily available and easily accessible for people when they need it.  

We fund: 

• services for victims/survivors who need immediate help and ongoing support  
• services for people who need immediate help to address violent and concerning behaviours and maintain long-term behavioural changes 
• services for families, whānau and individuals who need support to heal and recover from violence, and create healthy relationships 
• 24/7 phone and online services to make it easier for people to access help and information and find relevant services in their area. 

Strengthening and improving the helping system: MSD works to maintain and strengthen the helping system so that family and sexual violence services can effectively respond to the needs of families and whānau. We look for ways to improve services and improve the connections and pathways between services. We work to support providers to deliver quality services, collaborate and connect with each other, and continue to learn and innovate.

Preventing violence: MSD leads work to prevent violence from happening in the first place. Our prevention initiatives also help people to recognise and respond to the early signs of violence and work to ensure violence does not worsen over time or become a long-term behaviour.  

Our campaigns target everyone in New Zealand because we all play a role in eliminating violence. MSD’s work includes developing and implementing social marketing campaigns, supporting community-led responses, and creating tools and resources that anyone can use in their own homes and communities. We work in ways that are community-led so that what we do can meet the needs of communities and bring about long-term, sustainable behaviour change.

MSD’s work to address family and sexual violence mainly focuses on adults

Our family violence work focuses on addressing intimate partner violence and abuse of older people.   

• Intimate partner violence: This means adults who are impacted by physical, psychological, or sexual violence within their partner relationships. 
• Abuse of older people (sometimes referred to as elder abuse): This means older people and their caregivers who are impacted by physical, financial, and psychological violence, abuse or neglect. 

Our sexual violence work focuses on addressing: 

• Adult sexual violence: This means adults who have been impacted by sexual violence, harm, abuse, assault, or harassment including rape, incest, and a wide range of coercive and non-consensual sexual activity.  This can include adults who need support addressing historical abuse that occurred when they were a child or young person.   

The main way we support children and young people impacted by violence is to: 

• fund services for their parents or caregivers and work to address the intergenerational transmission of violence.   
• collaborate with Oranga Tamariki and other government agencies like Police and ACC to continuously improve the systems of support that exist for children and young people.

Strategies that guide our approach

We recognise that it is not only what we do but the way we do it that matters.   

There are two strategies that are foundational to our work: 

• Te Aorerekura – the national strategy to eliminate family violence and sexual violence 
• Te Pae Tawhiti – Our Future – presents the MSD strategic direction and describes the three strategic shifts we are making across our organisation, supported by our Māori strategy and action plan, Te Pae Tata – Te Rautaki Māori me te Mahere Mahi, and our Pacific strategy and action plan, Pacific Prosperity – Our People, Our Solutions, Our Future.

Family Violence and Sexual Violence Update

You can keep up to date with MSD’s work in family and sexual violence and learn about opportunities to be involved via our Family Violence and Sexual Violence Update (FVSV Update).