Our frontline community organisations play a vital role supporting New Zealanders every day, and we are backing them with more funding and greater certainty, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says.
"We are incredibly lucky to have so many fantastic community mental health and addiction providers working on the frontline. I have always said it is our NGOs who know their communities best, and our job is to back them to do that work," Mr Doocey says.
"That's why they have been provided more than $34 million in additional annual funding from 1 July 2026 to help providers respond to pressures and continue delivering essential mental health and addiction services in their communities.
"The majority of eligible community mental health and addiction NGO contracts have received a 3.16 per cent funding uplift, recognising the vital role they play."
Mr Doocey says the Government was also delivering greater certainty by moving the vast majority of providers onto three-year contracts.
"I inherited a system where around 80 per cent of community mental health providers were operating on one-year contracts. That simply wasn't good enough.
"I asked Health New Zealand to change the way it contracts with providers because organisations supporting people in our communities need certainty about what they can deliver in the years ahead.
"Instead of around 80 per cent being on one-year contracts and 20 per cent on three-year contracts, we are flipping that around. Around 83 per cent of providers will now be on three-year contracts, with only around 17 per cent remaining on 12-month agreements for defined reasons.
"Longer-term contracts give providers greater confidence to invest in their workforce and focus on delivering support for some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders, rather than worrying about whether their funding will continue each year.
"We know they are delivering. More than 82,000 people accessed specialist NGO mental health and addiction services last year, while many more received support through community providers delivering primary mental health services.
"We are backing the organisations that know their communities best because they play a vital role in helping us deliver faster access to support, more frontline workers, and a better crisis response.
"This is just another example of how the Government is fixing the basics and building the future when it comes to mental health support in New Zealand."
