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An $11.5 million publicity campaign against domestic violence may backfire, as counselling agencies say they have no money to help the men who may come forward.
The four-year television advertising campaign, due to start next month, is aimed at making domestic violence as socially unacceptable as smokingor drink-driving.
But Women's Refuge and the National Network of Stopping Violence Services say they have been given no extra money to cope with the expected influx of extra work.
Stopping Violence Services network manager Brian Gardner said he feared that some agencies would have to turn people away unless their funding was increased.
"This is a crisis in the making and a tragedy for New Zealand's very high rate of domestic violence if we can't help men who want to stop using violence," he said.
Agencies such as Friendship House in Manukau were struggling to cope with the increased numbers of men being "advised" to go for counselling by judges in the new Family Violence Courts.
The courts aim to help men to deal with their violence and stay out of jail by pleading guilty and going for counselling "voluntarily".
But they do not get any state funding unless they are actually directed to undergo counselling by a judge or probation officer.
In the nine months to March 31, 60 per cent of the men on Friendship House's anti-violence programmes were there "voluntarily".
The agency charges them $50 for the first session and $20 for each of 17 subsequent sessions, but says many can't afford to pay and even those who do pay cover only a fraction of the $1700 cost.
Preventing Violence in the Home in Auckland has taken 24 "voluntary" men on programmes this year and only 22 were funded through Probation Services or protection orders. Services manager Holly Carrington said the gap had to be covered by private fundraising.
Hamilton Violence Intervention Programme co-ordinator Lila Jones said the Government's failure to fund the likely impact of the advertising campaign was typical. It had also failed to provide extra money for referrals from Work and Income staff or multi-agency family safety teams. The referrals led to a 252 per cent jump in identified family violence.
The Hamilton programme is one of 33 agencies which have been given up to $30,000 each under a "community action fund" to prepare resources for minority ethnic groups.
Whanganui Living Without Violence Trust manager Christine, who did not want her surname used because of the violent clients she works with, said the advertising campaign threatened to be "an absolute nightmare".
"I know because I worked in England and ran two refuges and we had women ringing up regarding sexual harassment in the workplace," she said.
"We decided to do a campaign about that, but we couldn't deal with it, the response was too big. Since that time I have been very cautious about rolling out campaigns without the safety net in place.
"This is just going to make people more angry if they suddenly comeforward and are told that we aresnowed under so actually wecan't do anything for you."
Women's Refuge chief executive Heather Henare said the refuges had support from Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) for a $15 million increase in their current Government funding of $5.5 million a year, but received nothing in last month's Budget.
However, Associate Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson said a substantial increase in funding for refuges was now being negotiated.
This year's Budget also provided $2 million for training for Maori family violence counsellors. But it did not provide any extra money for mainstream anti-violence services.