Executive Summary

The Funded Family Care (FFC) policy was introduced on 1st October 2013. The Ministry commissioned an evaluation to assess the impact and effectiveness of Funded Family Care and the reasons influencing its uptake in its first year of operation. Evaluation participants who contributed their perspectives of FFC were:

• 45 disabled persons and/or family/whānau carers (40 who were accessing FFC and five who were not);
• 13 Needs Assessment and Service Coordination (NASC) representatives;
• five organisations representative of disabled people and family/whānau carers
• one manager from the Funding Advisory and Support Service (FASS).

In almost all of the 45 interviews with disabled persons and/or family/whānau carers, it was the family/whānau carer who did most of the talking. Many of the disabled persons were profoundly intellectually disabled which severely limited their ability to participate in the interview process.