# Joint NGO Submission — Strengthening Support for Unpaid or Informal Carers (2026)

Document ID: doc-0065  
Publisher: Joint NGO submission; hosted by Grandparents Raising Grandchildren  
Catalogue date: 2026  
Physical PDF pages: 20  
Original capture/access label: June 2026  
Source and content reviewed: 9 October 2026

Original local PDF: [2026 - Joint Submission - MSD Draft Carers Strategy.pdf](/pdfs/2026%20-%20Joint%20Submission%20-%20MSD%20Draft%20Carers%20Strategy.pdf)

Primary publisher source: [Publisher document or listing](https://www.grg.org.nz/our-mahi/publications)

## What the document contributes

Twenty-page joint NGO response to the draft Carers’ Strategy Action Plan, calling for explicit inclusion of informal kinship and whānau carers and support based on care needs rather than statutory status. Ten recommendations address recognition, a possible dedicated kinship plan, culturally responsive services, Māori-led legal review, navigation, trained staff, respite, financial equity and better data. It draws on 2025 kinship research, conference input and disability-community experience. This is evidence-informed advocacy, not government policy, a new benefit rule or a representative national survey; exact submission and publication dates remain unestablished.

## Substantive findings

- The named submitters are Family for Every Child, VOYCE Whakarongo Mai, Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Foundation for Equity and Research New Zealand, and Children’s Rights Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand.
- The core request is to include informal kinship, matua whāngai and whānau carers, including whāngai/atawhai. If excluded, the organisations seek a separate kinship-care action plan with comparable funding, monitoring and ambition.
- Its ten headline recommendations link carers’ wellbeing with children’s rights and participation, culturally responsive support and a Māori-led review of the Care of Children Act. Requested reforms are not a legal ruling or proof of adoption.
- Navigation recommendations include clear information, advocates or service navigators, timely assessment and specialist services, and linking diagnosis with funded support. The submission describes reported barriers rather than establishing current waiting times for every service.
- It seeks greater access to reliable, appropriately trained respite and financial support based on children’s needs, including reviewing benefit processes and broadening support for non-statutory caregivers. These are proposals, not verified eligibility or payment rates.
- Evidence includes the 2025 Strengthening Kinship Care research, input from the 2025 Grandparents Raising Grandchildren conference, FERNZ community groups and other published submissions. These sources differ in sampling, date and purpose and do not form one representative national dataset.
- It calls for data disaggregated by care type, ethnicity, disability and region, with baselines, targets and timelines. The publisher lists the joint submission, but its PDF download was blocked during review; the original local twenty-page document supplies the detailed content and no exact issue day is invented.

## Identity, dates and provenance

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren’s publications page lists Joint Submission on MSD’s Draft Carers’ Strategy and Action Plan. The actual local cover title is Strengthening Support for Unpaid or Informal Carers: A Fair, Consistent and Equitable Strategy for Aotearoa. All five submitters are named on its first page. No explicit submission or publication day is printed, so the existing year 2026 is retained. PDF creation and modification metadata on 12 March 2026 indicate file production, not a verified lodgement or public-release date. The publisher-linked download returned HTTP 403 during review; a byte-for-byte remote comparison could not be completed.

The original PDF and June 2026 capture label are preserved. The October 2026 review records source verification and catalogue enrichment; it does not replace publication or capture provenance. This companion brief is an editorial summary, not a substitute publisher document.

## Where to check the original

Pages 1–2: submitters, source base and ten headline recommendations. Pages 3–6: definition, kinship care and proposed Māori-led legal review. Pages 7–11: navigation, cultural safety and workforce capability. Pages 11–12: respite. Pages 13–15: financial equity. Pages 15–17: data and closing recommendations. Pages 18–19: references; the final physical page is retained in the twenty-page count.

## Evidence limits and use

This is a joint advocacy submission using prior research and lived experience. Its recommendations should be read as requests, including broadening the care definition, legal review, support parity and increased respite investment. They do not establish benefit eligibility, guardianship authority or implementation. Selected interviews, roughly seventy carers at a conference, and community-action input are not one representative sample; quoted experiences do not establish universal service waiting times. Numbers drawn from 2013 census analysis, earlier surveys and 2025 research have distinct dates and methods. Historical quoted support-worker pay and respite amounts are not republished as current rates. The evidence limitation from the blocked publisher download is recorded in the catalogue, with Medium confidence, without altering or discarding the original local PDF.

## Publisher references

- [Primary publisher document or listing](https://www.grg.org.nz/our-mahi/publications)
- [Publisher-listed PDF; download blocked at review](https://www.grg.org.nz/uploads/Joint%20Submission%20on%20MSD%E2%80%99s%20Draft%20Carers%E2%80%99%20Strategy%20and%20Action%20Plan.docx.pdf)