Seven charities have been granted more than $200,000 in funding from the ProCare Charitable Foundation (The Foundation) to support a range of health and wellness projects with a focus on children, youth and mental health. 

The Foundation, which aims to support health initiatives and improve health outcomes for disadvantaged communities across Auckland, received a record 75 applicants, requesting more than $3 million in grants, as part of its 2018 funding round.

Foundation Chair June McCabe says the calibre of the applications was a tribute to the incredible work happening in Auckland’s health charity sector.

The successful recipients of the 2018 ProCare Charitable Foundation funding round are; The Starship Foundation, The National Heart Foundation, Grief Support and Counselling Charitable Trust, Cystic Fibrosis Association of New Zealand, Cure Kids, Carers NZ and Family Success Matters.

Ms McCabe says the year-on-year increase in request for funding is an indication of the increasing pressure on charities to fulfil their obligations to areas of high needs in their communities.

“Charities have to work extra hard in 2019 to compete with a growing number of organisations that are looking for funding to help meet the needs of what seems to be an ever-increasing number of people that need support,” Ms McCabe said.

“In 2017 we received 60 applications, up from 40 in 2016. The total request for funding this year from the 75 applications we received was more than three million dollars.

“It is always a very difficult task to determine which charity receives funding. Every application demonstrated a genuine need for funding to support their constituents, and we do acknowledge the incredible work that the people who work in charities do.”

Cure Kids was successful with a grant for $60,000 to fund research to improve respiratory health in Māori and Pasifika infants. In South Auckland Māori and Pasifika babies experience up to seven times the rate of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) and nearly four times the rate of admission to hospital with severe chest infection, in their first year of life, compared with children of all other ethnicities. There are common risk factors shared for both SUDI and respiratory health problems in children. Therefore, this project will evaluate whether the Cure Kids-developed electronic Safe Sleep Calculator tool, which is used to assess risk of SUDI, is also accurate at predicting which babies are more at risk of a severe chest infection in their first year of life.

Cure Kids researcher Dr Christine McIntosh comments, “Our aim is to know which children will benefit most from targeted care so we can prevent them from getting sick in the first place. It is about being clever with data in order to achieve better health for children with effective and efficient use of health resources. “

To date, the ProCare Foundation has granted more than $900,000 to charities in the greater Auckland region with the aim of reducing health inequity, alleviating the symptoms of poverty, and increasing community health and wellbeing.

The recipients of the 2018 ProCare Foundation funding are:

Charity: Cure Kids
Amount: $60,000
Project Overview: Cure Kids will use the grant from the ProCare Charitable Foundation to fund research to improve respiratory health in Māori and Pasifika infants. The aim of the research project is to look at a way of targeting interventions to improve respiratory health for infants.

Charity: The Starship Foundation
Amount: $35,000
Project Overview: The Starship Foundation will use the grant from the ProCare Charitable Foundation to fund a Youth Health Transition Project Lead to support young people with chronic and acute conditions or disabilities that are at high risk of ‘dropping out’ of health care services when they transition from paediatric to adult-centred health care. The Youth Health Transition Project Lead will work collaboratively with young people with special health needs to develop clear, documented plans for transition and navigation through the adult health system.

Charity: National Heart Foundation of New Zealand
Amount:  $28,954
Project Overview: The National Heart Foundation of New Zealand will use the grant from the ProCare Charitable Foundation to support the nutrition programmes in South Auckland Early Learning Centres (ELCs). As well as supplementing a Nutrition Advisory who will work with the ELCs, the funding will also go towards supplying 900 re-usable, ecofriendly sandwich wraps and educational interactive magnets to help reduced packaged 'snack' foods in ELCs and increase the awareness around healthy food.

Charity: Grief Support and Education Charitable Trust
Amount: $20,000
Project Overview: The Grief Support and Education Charitable Trust will use the grant from the ProCare Charitable Foundation to provide subsidised or free grief counselling services to people living in the Auckland region who are facing some form of loss and grief. The funding will enable the Grief Support and Education Charitable Trust to provide 200 free, or 300 half-subsidised, counselling sessions. These services promote wellbeing and enable families to cope through loss and rebuild their lives. Without support, people are considered to be at significant risk of isolation, depression and more severe mental health and social issues.

Charity: Cystic Fibrosis Association of New Zealand
Amount: $20,000
Project Overview: Cystic Fibrosis Association of New Zealand will use the grant from the ProCare Charitable Foundation to fund the salary and expenses of the Northern Family Support Fieldworker who will provide support to 140 people and their families affected by Cystic Fibrosis (CF) in the Auckland region. The Northern Family Support Fieldworker is based in Auckland and provides face-to-face support, organises access to essential medical equipment and services, and provides a link between the hospital multi-disciplinary team and the community.

Charity: Carers New Zealand
Amount: $25,000
Project Overview: Carers New Zealand will use the grant from the ProCare Charitable Foundation to support the wellbeing of young carers in the Auckland area. Young carers, up to the age of 24, who support loved ones who are elderly, ill, or have disabilities, are a hidden and largely unsupported population of carers. The funding from the ProCare Charitable Foundation will give Carers New Zealand the ability to contract a youth specialist to visit schools, medical practices, youth networks, and sporting organisations, distribute resources and encourage young carers to join the Carers New Zealand network for wellbeing support and advice.

Charity: Family Success Matters
Amount: $20,000
Project Overview: Family Success Matters will use the grant from the ProCare Charitable Foundation to support 230 solo mothers and children who are ‘at-high-risk’. The funding will enable Family Success Matters to employ a Children’s Services Coordinator, and work towards improving the safety and well-being of 230 ‘at-high-risk’ single mothers and their children in Counties Manukau, by ensuring the mothers and their children are adequately supported at every stage of their development as they progress towards a safer and more prosperous future.

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For more information contact:

Ruth Morse

Email: ruth.morse@procare.co.nz 

Mobile: +64 (0)21 263 1415

About the ProCare Foundation

The ProCare Charitable Foundation was established by the shareholders of ProCare who gifted over 90% of their shares to the Foundation in 2013. The purpose of the Foundation is to help promote the health and wellbeing of disadvantaged communities, deliver health-related activities that improve a community’s wellbeing, or reduce health inequalities and alleviate poverty and deprivation in the Auckland region.

For more information about the Foundation and previous grant recipients, click here