Parents of Vision Impaired (NZ) has made a formal submission on the Government’s draft Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2026–2036, currently out for public consultation.
We welcome the strategy’s focus on prevention, early intervention, and lived experience leadership. However, our submission identifies significant gaps.
What we said
Carers are invisible in the strategy: Family carers — including parents of disabled children — are not mentioned anywhere in the draft strategy. Research is clear that carers experience significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression, driven by financial pressure, exhaustion, and navigating complex systems with little support. We asked the Ministry to explicitly recognise carers as a priority population and to integrate the Carers’ Strategy Action Plan (Mahi Aroha) into mental health system design.
Disabled people are not prioritised: Despite experiencing psychological distress at rates four to five times higher than non-disabled New Zealanders, disabled people are not named as a priority group. The strategy includes no disability-specific actions, no accessibility standards that account for sensory or communication needs, and no disability-disaggregated data requirements. We asked for explicit alignment with the Health of Disabled People Strategy (2023).
UNCRPD obligations must be reflected: New Zealand has obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The strategy does not mention them. We asked for rights-based approaches — including supported decision-making and a commitment to reducing coercive practices — to be embedded in the strategy’s design.
Peer support must complement clinical care, not replace it: The strategy places heavy emphasis on peer and lived experience workers, which we value. But for families managing complex disability and mental health needs, peer support works best alongside professional clinical care. We asked the strategy to clearly map what clinical services will be available and at what threshold of need — so peer support doesn’t fill the gap left by under-resourced clinical services.
Respite is a mental health intervention: Access to flexible, reliable respite is one of the most effective ways to prevent carer burnout and mental health crisis. It is barely acknowledged in the strategy. We asked for significant investment in respite as a core part of the mental health prevention infrastructure.
Data must reflect our community: If disabled people and carers are not counted separately in mental health monitoring, their needs will remain invisible in system reporting. We asked for mandatory disability-disaggregated data collection and public reporting.
Our key asks
- Recognise disabled people and family carers as explicit priority populations
- Integrate the Health of Disabled People Strategy as a core guiding framework
- Operationalise the Carers’ Strategy Action Plan within mental health system design
- Embed UNCRPD-aligned, rights-based approaches throughout
- Define accessibility to include sensory, cognitive, and communication dimensions
- Mandate disability-disaggregated data collection and reporting
- Clarify and strengthen the clinical tier
- Invest urgently in flexible respite as mental health prevention infrastructure
- Establish a cross-strategy implementation mechanism linking mental health, disability, and carer policy
Have your say
The consultation is open until 18 May, 2026 Your experience as a parent or carer is exactly what this process needs to hear.
Read PVI’s full submission:
