Tariana Turia

Wellington, June 21 NZPA - Whanau Ora Minister Tariana Turia says the welfare policy is about transformation.

Under Whanau Ora, money currently spent by health, education, justice and social development agencies will be delivered to individual agencies to work, through "negotiators", with families facing problems.

The programme was announced in April and $134.3 million over the next four years was set aside for it in the budget.

Whana Ora was about transforming social service delivery to focus on families' needs rather than only responding to a specific issue an individual has, Mrs Turia told a welfare and social policy reform conference in Wellington today.

She gave the example of a person who presented with diabetes and received appropriate treatment to address the medical concerns.

Under Whanau Ora, a wider lifestyle focus would be taken -- looking at healthy diet and regular exercise.

The Whanau Ora Taskforce said suggested outcomes from the programme should include self management, healthy lifestyles, participating fully in society, participating in te Ao Maori, being economically secure and involved in wealth creation and being cohesive, resilient and nurturing.

"These outcomes sound great on paper -- but the big question is, of course, how will they be translated from principle to action," Mrs Turia said.

Government agencies and non-governmental organisations would need to co-operate better and there had to be better collaboration between funders, providers, practitioners and whanau for an all-of-whanau approach to work, she said.

There was strong demand for a cross-agency focus from those working with communities.

Whanau Ora was also about being self-sustaining, Mrs Turia said.

"It's about restoring that sense of collective responsibility to care for our own," she said.

"Conventional policy designs have gone as far as they can in trying to address the seemingly intractable issues that have been affecting whanau."

Transformation would occur when whanau come up with their own solutions, Mrs Turia said.