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Social Investment | Radio New Zealand 25th June 2017
News Zealand spends billions on welfare and social services every year, but how do we know it's money well spent?
The government all ready uses data it holds to make sure citizens, are getting the right social services. Now it wants to take that a step further and use identifiable data to target help to individuals. But some social service groups have said handing client information to the government will kill the trust they have with their clients, with many simply avoiding help.
When Helen* went to see a lawyer to find out how she could go about divorcing her husband, her lawyer told her she'd be happy to help her, but only once she had been to Women's Refuge. Helen was puzzled by the lawyer's comment and resistant to seeing Women's Refuge, but eventually decided to play along so she could be free of her marriage.
At the time it hadn't fully occurred to her that she had been the victim of her husband's sexual, mental and financial abuse, because 'other people' were victims, not her.
"It started off as emotional abuse and then a little bit of violence, then sexual violence, in terms of drugging me and having friends take advantage.
"He did come to my house once and rape me after I'd moved out ... and I couldn't scream because my kids were in the house."
As a professional and independent woman the stigma of being a victim, and what it could do to her pride and career if it got out, terrified her.
"To me it was a failure in my own life, and I had to go through a lot of counselling to accept that I hadn't failed. So it would have been embarrassing for me, it might have affected my career, people might have seen me as not being able to cope, as awful as that sounds, that would have worried me."
Helen said she also had to keep her address under wraps to protect herself from her ex-husband who was often camped outside her work waiting to harass her.
She said with those worries in her mind, it would have been known why she was seeking help from Women's Refuge and she needed to be able to share her personal story only when it felt appropriate for her.
"I needed to be able to be vulnerable and trust the people helping me - it's my story, it's not the government's."