Victims of tragedies are hoping a new set of public service standards will stop Government agencies from "running around like headless chooks" in times of disaster.
The Working with Survivors document will be launched by the Public Service Commission (PSC) on Tuesday, with the aim of improving the process for victims of significant events.
Pike River families co-authored the standards, also consulting with those affected by the March 15 attacks, the Aramoana massacre, Whakaari-White Island Eruption, Cave Creek and the CTV building collapse.
Sonya Rockhouse, whose son Ben died at Pike River, hoped the guide would only help future victims.
"We were just all treated like mushrooms and kept in the dark, and it shouldn't be like that - these are our loved ones that have been lost and we're all adults," she told AM. "They're better off to tell us the truth from the beginning. We might not like it but, eventually, we would come to terms with it."
Anna Osbourne lost her husband Milton in the Pike River disaster. In the aftermath of the 2010 disaster, she said many things went wrong for grieving families.
"We felt like we got no support - we felt like agencies were actually running around with their heads chopped off like a chook because there was just no real support from any Government departments."
Osbourne told AM host Melissa Chan-Green victims' families felt like there was nowhere to turn.
"We went through a hell of a time in the early days right up to where we are now and we have learnt a lot of lessons from the past, and that's why we're here today to actually put those lessons to the PSC so that all agencies will be on the same page and those victims of future tragedies won't have to go through what we did," Osbourne said.
She said it's hoped the new standards would stop people from being re-victimised in times of disaster.
"What the standard is going to do is, hopefully, empower them… what we need is victims working alongside agencies so they are together doing this - working it out together so they don't remain victims, they become empowered and hopefully, in the end, will become real survivors."
The process in the aftermath of Pike River was a cruel one, Rockhouse added.
"It shouldn't be like that… we were only told little snippets of things and we should've been involved," she said. "Since we've been able to be involved with the agencies, it's completely changed… I don't know if we'll ever move on but it's given a little bit of closure and it's given us that power back."
Rockhouse hoped agencies would now know how to treat grieving families amid future disasters.
Osbourne said the new standards were a way of giving back to New Zealanders for their generosity in the wake of the disaster.
"This is also another way of memorialising our men - we don't want the 29 to ever be forgotten."
