Our Whakapapa
The courage, learning and relationships that shaped our journey
He whakapapa of courage, learning and change
Family Help Trust was born from a simple but challenging question: what would it take to stop another generation of tamariki experiencing the same harm as the generation before them?
In 1990, three residential social workers in Ōtautahi Christchurch, including Libby Robins ONZM, came together because of what they were seeing in their work. Children who had entered state care after experiencing abuse, neglect and severe family hardship were too often moving from the care system into youth justice and, later, adult prisons. The workers could see that this was not a series of isolated events. It was an intergenerational pattern shaped by trauma, disadvantage, violence and needs that had gone unmet for many years.
They believed that waiting until children were older, or until a family was already in crisis, was too late. To create a different future, support had to begin as early as possible in a child’s life. It needed to work with parents as well as tamariki, enter the reality of everyday whānau life, and remain involved long enough for trust and meaningful change to grow.
That belief became the foundation of Family Help Trust.
The beginning: turning an idea into action
The organisation was established in 1990 as the Christchurch Therapeutic Trust, becoming Family Help Trust in 1994. From the outset, it was determined to test a new response to intergenerational harm.
The three social workers developed a proposal for a long-term family support programme and shared it with others who were equally concerned about the human and social cost of inadequate early intervention. A steering group was formed, bringing together people from social work, justice, corrections, psychiatry, psychotherapy and business. Their task was to establish a charitable organisation, raise funds and pilot the idea with a small group of families.
The proposal attracted the interest of the then Minister of Social Welfare, the Hon Jenny Shipley. Seed funding was offered alongside support from the justice sector, with the first pilot to involve men preparing for release from Paparua Prison whose partners and young children were living in Christchurch.
The men selected had long histories of offending. This was deliberate. The founders believed that change alongside parents facing the greatest challenges could reach far beyond one individual. Tamariki could be safer, whānau stronger, and pathways into state care and justice interrupted.
From its earliest days, Family Help Trust viewed the child as part of a wider whakapapa. The work was about the child in front of us, the experiences of their parents and grandparents, and the future of the generations still to come.
A model that had to change
The first model combined individual psychotherapy for parents with practical social work support in the home. The initial belief was that therapy would be the main driver of change, while social workers would help parents develop skills such as positive reinforcement, clear boundaries, routines and constructive ways of playing and communicating with their children.
Within six months, the founders knew the approach was not working. Many parents carried the effects of chaotic, traumatic childhoods and had spent much of their adult lives reacting to immediate danger and difficulty. Sitting in an office and reflecting on why their lives had reached this point was often overwhelming and disconnected from the daily realities they faced. Appointments were missed, engagement was low and valuable funding was being spent on a model that did not fit.
Rather than accept failure, Family Help Trust listened, learned and started again.
The service moved fully into the home. Support became practical, flexible, relational and long term. Rather than asking families to fit the service, the service was shaped around the needs of families. Skilled social workers worked alongside parents where life was happening, helping with immediate challenges, modelling safer parenting, strengthening routines and relationships, and slowly building the trust needed to address deeper patterns of harm.
This reflected the understanding that it takes a village to raise a child and connected with collective approaches to whānau and community. The service became a wraparound ‘holding environment’: steady through uncertainty, while keeping child safety and change in view.
Building practice from evidence
Family Help Trust’s model was never based on goodwill alone. From the beginning, its leaders sought out the strongest available knowledge about child development, attachment, trauma, family systems and behaviour. Thinkers such as Donald Winnicott, John Bowlby, Margaret Mahler, Melanie Klein, Michael Rutter, Erik Erikson and Abraham Maslow helped shape the developing practice. Lisbeth and Daniel Schorr’s work on breaking cycles of disadvantage reinforced the importance of intervening early, remaining flexible, working across professional boundaries and staying involved for the long term.
New understanding of early brain development also strengthened the Trust’s conviction that the first years of life matter profoundly. The work of Dr Bruce Perry and the advocacy of New Zealand paediatrician Dr Robin Fancourt helped bring this knowledge into wider public awareness. It affirmed what the founders were already seeing: early experiences shape development, relationships and the ability to feel safe in the world.
A particularly important relationship developed with Associate Professor David Fergusson and the Christchurch Health and Development Study. The study had followed a birth cohort from 1977 and identified a small group of young people who, by adolescence, experienced severe and multiple difficulties. Their childhoods were marked by significant disadvantage, and their likelihood of later adjustment problems and justice involvement was dramatically higher.
Fergusson shared the desire to develop and research an effective home-visiting service. However, there was an important difference in view. Working with families at a lower level of risk was considered more likely to produce measurable success. Family Help Trust believed the organisation must remain focused on families at the highest end of the risk continuum—those affected by overlapping experiences such as violence, offending, substance harm, mental distress, poverty, trauma and child protection involvement.
This position was controversial. Some feared that targeted services would stigmatise families; others doubted that deeply established patterns could change. Family Help Trust held fast to its founding purpose. These were the whānau most in need of intensive support, and ignoring them would come at an even greater cost to tamariki, communities and future generations.
Learning from Hawaii and creating Early Start
An international connection then opened another important pathway. With government support, Libby attended a Family Preservation conference in Seattle and learned about Healthy Start Hawaii, an influential home-visiting programme. Her report brought the model to the attention of Dame Lesley Max, who later visited Hawaii through her Winston Churchill Fellowship.
With support from Family Help Trust, David Fergusson and government leaders, key people from Healthy Start Hawaii, including Dr Calvin Sia and Gail Breakey came to Aotearoa to share their knowledge. Their experience contributed to the development of a Christchurch home-visiting model grounded in early intervention, relationship-based practice and research.
In 1995, the Early Start partnership was formed. Its governance brought together Family Help Trust, Plunket, Māori representatives, health professionals, the Christchurch Health and Development Study and community members. Seed funding was received through the regional health system and initially held by Family Help Trust before Early Start Project Ltd was established in 1996.
Helping create Early Start was a huge step for a small NGO. Family Help Trust paused its services while Libby and the Board learned more about research, programme design and demonstrating effectiveness. It strengthened the belief that good intentions must be matched by evidence and accountability.
Family Help Trust remained a core partner in Early Start until 2001. It then made the courageous decision to return to its original calling: working specifically with the whānau who were hardest to reach and whose babies and young children faced the greatest risk.
Returning to our kaupapa: Safer Families
The learning gathered through the early pilot, Healthy Start Hawaii and Early Start came together in the development of Safer Families. With important support from Rātā Foundation, Family Help Trust once again began to row its own waka.
Safer Families was designed as an intensive, long-term, home-based service for whānau experiencing multiple and intergenerational challenges. The safety and wellbeing of the child remained the central purpose of the work. Family Help Trust had learned from international research that child abuse prevention could not be assumed to occur simply because other aspects of family life improved. Child safety needed to be visible, intentional and embedded in assessment, training, supervision and everyday practice.
The model also recognised that relationships are the pathway to change. Many parents had good reason to distrust services. They may have experienced state care themselves, felt judged by professionals or learned that asking for help could bring unwanted consequences. Kaimahi therefore needed the skill, consistency and courage to build genuine relationships while remaining clear about risk, responsibility and the needs of tamariki.
This was not short-term work. Change took time, and practitioners needed strong supervision, supportive leadership and the freedom to work across service boundaries. Families could not be told that an urgent need was beyond the limits of a contract and then left to manage alone. The work required persistence: staying alongside whānau through setbacks, recognising strengths, addressing harm and continuing to hold hope for a different future.
Proving that the mahi makes a difference
In 2001, Family Help Trust established a formal research and evaluation framework using quantitative measures and recognised assessment tools. Independent evaluations followed over many years, allowing the organisation to test its assumptions, learn from results and strengthen practice.
In 2014, the Trust developed EASI, a purpose-built case management and outcomes system. EASI enabled practitioners and leaders to record the whānau journey, monitor risk and progress, and report on meaningful outcomes rather than activity alone. The system has continued to develop and now supports comprehensive measurement across each family’s time with the service.
External findings have affirmed the value of this approach. An Oranga Tamariki study published in 2019 found that children were substantially more likely to remain out of care when their families completed the intervention. For children with a previous care history, those whose families completed the service were 5.2 times more likely to remain out of care than those who did not complete. The study also found no statistically significant difference in outcomes by ethnicity.
ImpactLab’s 2021 analysis estimated that every dollar invested in Family Help Trust generated $13.90 in measurable social value. Behind that figure are outcomes that matter deeply: tamariki remaining safe, parents strengthening their capability, whānau staying together and intergenerational patterns beginning to change.
Carrying our whakapapa forward
More than three decades later, Family Help Trust remains grounded in the conviction that no whānau should be dismissed as too complex or too hard to reach. Governments, funding systems and the social service environment have changed, but the heart of the kaupapa remains the same: begin early, work intensively, build relationships, follow the evidence and never lose sight of the child.
Our whakapapa lives through the many people who have shaped this journey- founders, trustees, researchers, government and philanthropic supporters, community partners, kaimahi and, most importantly, the whānau who have allowed Family Help Trust into their homes and their lives. Their experiences have taught us what effective support requires and why this mahi must continue.
Today, we carry this inheritance forward through culturally responsive and Te Tiriti-informed practice, strong supervision, skilled kaimahi, meaningful partnerships and a continued commitment to evidence. We honour where we have come from by remaining willing to learn and adapt, just as the founders did when the first model did not work.
This history is more than a timeline. It is the foundation beneath our practice and the responsibility we carry into the future: to uphold the mana and safety of tamariki, walk alongside whānau with honesty and hope, and help create change that reaches the generations still to come.
Acknowledgement
This whakapapa has been shaped from the history written by Libby Robins ONZM, Winston Churchill Fellow, founder and now Patron of Family Help Trust. We acknowledge Libby, her fellow founding social workers, the early trustees and supporters, and every person and whānau who has contributed to the Family Help Trust journey.
Family Help Trust was born from a simple but challenging question: what would it take to stop another generation of tamariki experiencing the same harm as the generation before them?
In 1990, three residential social workers in Ōtautahi Christchurch, including Libby Robins ONZM, came together because of what they were seeing in their work. Children who had entered state care after experiencing abuse, neglect and severe family hardship were too often moving from the care system into youth justice and, later, adult prisons. The workers could see that this was not a series of isolated events. It was an intergenerational pattern shaped by trauma, disadvantage, violence and needs that had gone unmet for many years.
They believed that waiting until children were older, or until a family was already in crisis, was too late. To create a different future, support had to begin as early as possible in a child’s life. It needed to work with parents as well as tamariki, enter the reality of everyday whānau life, and remain involved long enough for trust and meaningful change to grow.
That belief became the foundation of Family Help Trust.
The beginning: turning an idea into action
The organisation was established in 1990 as the Christchurch Therapeutic Trust, becoming Family Help Trust in 1994. From the outset, it was determined to test a new response to intergenerational harm.
The three social workers developed a proposal for a long-term family support programme and shared it with others who were equally concerned about the human and social cost of inadequate early intervention. A steering group was formed, bringing together people from social work, justice, corrections, psychiatry, psychotherapy and business. Their task was to establish a charitable organisation, raise funds and pilot the idea with a small group of families.
The proposal attracted the interest of the then Minister of Social Welfare, the Hon Jenny Shipley. Seed funding was offered alongside support from the justice sector, with the first pilot to involve men preparing for release from Paparua Prison whose partners and young children were living in Christchurch.
The men selected had long histories of offending. This was deliberate. The founders believed that change alongside parents facing the greatest challenges could reach far beyond one individual. Tamariki could be safer, whānau stronger, and pathways into state care and justice interrupted.
From its earliest days, Family Help Trust viewed the child as part of a wider whakapapa. The work was about the child in front of us, the experiences of their parents and grandparents, and the future of the generations still to come.
A model that had to change
The first model combined individual psychotherapy for parents with practical social work support in the home. The initial belief was that therapy would be the main driver of change, while social workers would help parents develop skills such as positive reinforcement, clear boundaries, routines and constructive ways of playing and communicating with their children.
Within six months, the founders knew the approach was not working. Many parents carried the effects of chaotic, traumatic childhoods and had spent much of their adult lives reacting to immediate danger and difficulty. Sitting in an office and reflecting on why their lives had reached this point was often overwhelming and disconnected from the daily realities they faced. Appointments were missed, engagement was low and valuable funding was being spent on a model that did not fit.
Rather than accept failure, Family Help Trust listened, learned and started again.
The service moved fully into the home. Support became practical, flexible, relational and long term. Rather than asking families to fit the service, the service was shaped around the needs of families. Skilled social workers worked alongside parents where life was happening, helping with immediate challenges, modelling safer parenting, strengthening routines and relationships, and slowly building the trust needed to address deeper patterns of harm.
This reflected the understanding that it takes a village to raise a child and connected with collective approaches to whānau and community. The service became a wraparound ‘holding environment’: steady through uncertainty, while keeping child safety and change in view.
Building practice from evidence
Family Help Trust’s model was never based on goodwill alone. From the beginning, its leaders sought out the strongest available knowledge about child development, attachment, trauma, family systems and behaviour. Thinkers such as Donald Winnicott, John Bowlby, Margaret Mahler, Melanie Klein, Michael Rutter, Erik Erikson and Abraham Maslow helped shape the developing practice. Lisbeth and Daniel Schorr’s work on breaking cycles of disadvantage reinforced the importance of intervening early, remaining flexible, working across professional boundaries and staying involved for the long term.
New understanding of early brain development also strengthened the Trust’s conviction that the first years of life matter profoundly. The work of Dr Bruce Perry and the advocacy of New Zealand paediatrician Dr Robin Fancourt helped bring this knowledge into wider public awareness. It affirmed what the founders were already seeing: early experiences shape development, relationships and the ability to feel safe in the world.
A particularly important relationship developed with Associate Professor David Fergusson and the Christchurch Health and Development Study. The study had followed a birth cohort from 1977 and identified a small group of young people who, by adolescence, experienced severe and multiple difficulties. Their childhoods were marked by significant disadvantage, and their likelihood of later adjustment problems and justice involvement was dramatically higher.
Fergusson shared the desire to develop and research an effective home-visiting service. However, there was an important difference in view. Working with families at a lower level of risk was considered more likely to produce measurable success. Family Help Trust believed the organisation must remain focused on families at the highest end of the risk continuum—those affected by overlapping experiences such as violence, offending, substance harm, mental distress, poverty, trauma and child protection involvement.
This position was controversial. Some feared that targeted services would stigmatise families; others doubted that deeply established patterns could change. Family Help Trust held fast to its founding purpose. These were the whānau most in need of intensive support, and ignoring them would come at an even greater cost to tamariki, communities and future generations.
Learning from Hawaii and creating Early Start
An international connection then opened another important pathway. With government support, Libby attended a Family Preservation conference in Seattle and learned about Healthy Start Hawaii, an influential home-visiting programme. Her report brought the model to the attention of Dame Lesley Max, who later visited Hawaii through her Winston Churchill Fellowship.
With support from Family Help Trust, David Fergusson and government leaders, key people from Healthy Start Hawaii, including Dr Calvin Sia and Gail Breakey came to Aotearoa to share their knowledge. Their experience contributed to the development of a Christchurch home-visiting model grounded in early intervention, relationship-based practice and research.
In 1995, the Early Start partnership was formed. Its governance brought together Family Help Trust, Plunket, Māori representatives, health professionals, the Christchurch Health and Development Study and community members. Seed funding was received through the regional health system and initially held by Family Help Trust before Early Start Project Ltd was established in 1996.
Helping create Early Start was a huge step for a small NGO. Family Help Trust paused its services while Libby and the Board learned more about research, programme design and demonstrating effectiveness. It strengthened the belief that good intentions must be matched by evidence and accountability.
Family Help Trust remained a core partner in Early Start until 2001. It then made the courageous decision to return to its original calling: working specifically with the whānau who were hardest to reach and whose babies and young children faced the greatest risk.
Returning to our kaupapa: Safer Families
The learning gathered through the early pilot, Healthy Start Hawaii and Early Start came together in the development of Safer Families. With important support from Rātā Foundation, Family Help Trust once again began to row its own waka.
Safer Families was designed as an intensive, long-term, home-based service for whānau experiencing multiple and intergenerational challenges. The safety and wellbeing of the child remained the central purpose of the work. Family Help Trust had learned from international research that child abuse prevention could not be assumed to occur simply because other aspects of family life improved. Child safety needed to be visible, intentional and embedded in assessment, training, supervision and everyday practice.
The model also recognised that relationships are the pathway to change. Many parents had good reason to distrust services. They may have experienced state care themselves, felt judged by professionals or learned that asking for help could bring unwanted consequences. Kaimahi therefore needed the skill, consistency and courage to build genuine relationships while remaining clear about risk, responsibility and the needs of tamariki.
This was not short-term work. Change took time, and practitioners needed strong supervision, supportive leadership and the freedom to work across service boundaries. Families could not be told that an urgent need was beyond the limits of a contract and then left to manage alone. The work required persistence: staying alongside whānau through setbacks, recognising strengths, addressing harm and continuing to hold hope for a different future.
Proving that the mahi makes a difference
In 2001, Family Help Trust established a formal research and evaluation framework using quantitative measures and recognised assessment tools. Independent evaluations followed over many years, allowing the organisation to test its assumptions, learn from results and strengthen practice.
In 2014, the Trust developed EASI, a purpose-built case management and outcomes system. EASI enabled practitioners and leaders to record the whānau journey, monitor risk and progress, and report on meaningful outcomes rather than activity alone. The system has continued to develop and now supports comprehensive measurement across each family’s time with the service.
External findings have affirmed the value of this approach. An Oranga Tamariki study published in 2019 found that children were substantially more likely to remain out of care when their families completed the intervention. For children with a previous care history, those whose families completed the service were 5.2 times more likely to remain out of care than those who did not complete. The study also found no statistically significant difference in outcomes by ethnicity.
ImpactLab’s 2021 analysis estimated that every dollar invested in Family Help Trust generated $13.90 in measurable social value. Behind that figure are outcomes that matter deeply: tamariki remaining safe, parents strengthening their capability, whānau staying together and intergenerational patterns beginning to change.
Carrying our whakapapa forward
More than three decades later, Family Help Trust remains grounded in the conviction that no whānau should be dismissed as too complex or too hard to reach. Governments, funding systems and the social service environment have changed, but the heart of the kaupapa remains the same: begin early, work intensively, build relationships, follow the evidence and never lose sight of the child.
Our whakapapa lives through the many people who have shaped this journey- founders, trustees, researchers, government and philanthropic supporters, community partners, kaimahi and, most importantly, the whānau who have allowed Family Help Trust into their homes and their lives. Their experiences have taught us what effective support requires and why this mahi must continue.
Today, we carry this inheritance forward through culturally responsive and Te Tiriti-informed practice, strong supervision, skilled kaimahi, meaningful partnerships and a continued commitment to evidence. We honour where we have come from by remaining willing to learn and adapt, just as the founders did when the first model did not work.
This history is more than a timeline. It is the foundation beneath our practice and the responsibility we carry into the future: to uphold the mana and safety of tamariki, walk alongside whānau with honesty and hope, and help create change that reaches the generations still to come.
Acknowledgement
This whakapapa has been shaped from the history written by Libby Robins ONZM, Winston Churchill Fellow, founder and now Patron of Family Help Trust. We acknowledge Libby, her fellow founding social workers, the early trustees and supporters, and every person and whānau who has contributed to the Family Help Trust journey.