Results from Whanau Ora likely within a year - minister

Whanau Ora Minister Tariana Turia expects to see results from the new welfare policy within a year, but says it will take a generation to see changes in some families.

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, with $134.3 million over the next four years set aside for it in the budget.

Mrs Turia said progress would start to show after a year.

There would be families who were slow to show change in the first year and some who would need a lot more time, she told Parliament's social services committee today.

"That's to be expected...but we do think that, very quickly, there will be a willingness by some families to begin to change."

Families were already picking up on the talk around Whanau Ora, Mrs Turia said.

For those families that took longer to show change it was not a bad thing, she said.

It would take time for them to build resilience and confidence.

"We're trying to change attitudes here and that's the hardest thing to change actually."

Labour MP Rajen Prasad said the committee was constantly being told that programmes used must be evidence-based.

Mrs Turia said negotiators would be trained by researchers to enable them to gather information and data to measure outcomes.

Whanau Ora would help families to deal with issues that government and non-profit organisations were currently involved with.

In the past families had dealt with such issues themselves, Mrs Turia said.

"This is about restoring the responsibility and the obligation back to families to in the first instance pick up on these issues themselves rather than having the state be part of their family.

"I haven't yet met a family where someone else has resolved their problems for them."

Whanau Ora negotiators would need to build relationships with a family as they would not tell their story to a stranger, Mrs Turia said.

No matter how weak a family was there was always someone in the wider family who could step up and take responsibility, she said.

National Party MP Hekia Parata said whanau ora was both sophisticated and simple.

Departments work in sectors while families live their lives, she said.