New Kaikaranga service approved for funding to support tamariki at high risk of disengagement from school

Auckland’s largest disability-needs assessment and support coordination (NASC) service is launching a new service after its proposal was accepted by the Social Investment Agency (SIA) for its Pathway One: New Investment funding – the first round of funding for initiatives which focus on priority cohorts and strongly demonstrate an ability to make the best overall impact for those groups. Kaikaranga’s proposal was one of seven selected by the SIA, and reflects an interest expressed by Kaikaranga to do more for this group of children and their families.

A four year, child and whānau-centred initiative

Kaikaranga’s four-year long, child-and-whānau-centred initiative was co-designed through workshops with frontline staff and partners with lived experience, and it prioritises engagement, inclusion, and practical support. It will roll out in 2026. It will focus on supporting the third of the SIA’s three prioritised cohorts, namely children younger than 13 who have been stood down or suspended from school, including children who have had multiple stand-downs or are at high risk of disengagement from school. These children can experience prolonged and persistent barriers to getting the right support at the right time through the education and social service systems. These experiences compound with social and economic pressures for families, creating intersectional disadvantage with long term effects.

Scale of the challenge in Auckland

Each year, more than 6,000 Auckland children experience exclusion or chronic non-attendance. An estimated 25% to 30% of these children (1,500 to 1,800) are disabled or neurodiverse. These figures include children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), who are frequently ineligible for effective funded supports despite having high and complex needs.

Kaikaranga CEO Sonia Hawea says, “Kaikaranga feels privileged every day to work alongside children and families, listening to their stories, their hopes and aspirations for a good life. We are there from the start, to offer trusted advice and support. We know the systems families have to navigate – disability, health, education, housing – are complex.  To make disability support effective for children and adults, we already work across multiple systems. We want to use our experience to make it simpler, and to support children and families to access the learning and education outcomes they need and deserve.

“Our initiative will surface the impacts of the system dysfunction, by identifying and working through barriers, and at the same time building evidence about what is required, and what works, to provide children with genuine opportunities for measurable learning outcomes relevant to their goals. We will contribute to the outcome measures and strengthen confidence in the data by reflecting the unique experiences of children and families. And we want to ensure that moving forward, the responsibility for learning outcomes is balanced fairly between the education system, and children and families.

“We’re grateful to the Social Investment Agency and the New Investment Pathway team for recognising the strength of our existing relationships, and the value of our proposal. It is our intention that our initiative, through cross-community, multi-agency engagement will offer solutions to the gaps and barriers that families live through year after year. We commend the SIA for ‘seeing’ disabled children and their families, through this, and other initiatives. We are honoured to contribute to system-level learning and driving change aligned with our purpose.

How the initiative will work: kaituhono and enablers

Under the terms of Kaikaranga’s initiative, each Kaituhono (Kaikaranga’s core relationship connectors), will work with children who are identified as part of the priority cohort, including families who have more than one child requiring support.

While this is happening, Enablers (who work at the system level, not with individual families) will strengthen the pathways to and from learning and education settings, and between those settings and health and disability systems. Their role is to improve collaboration and coordination between these agencies and across communities, to reduce structural barriers and bottlenecks, and ‘enable’ the overall system to engage and respond, so families do not have to fight for support.

Kaikaranga expects to engage approximately 150 tamariki and their whānau each year, reaching 400 to 500 over the four-year life of the initiative. Because many families experience high and complex needs, the duration of engagement will vary from short-term coordination to multi-year support.