Report targets family violence
series of papers looking at the factors contributing to NZ’S high incarceration rate.
‘‘Family violence is clearly a solvable problem,’’ he says.
The paper lays out a series of priority strategies for reducing family violence, which are set to feed into the Government’s new national strategy and action plan on family violence and sexual violence, which is currently being developed.
At the top, broadening the public’s and professional sector’s understanding of the effects of adverse childhood experiences to drive ‘‘community-wide commitment to early prevention and intervention’’.
While work to develop a complex set of predictor tools has been under way for years, many of the indicators linked to family violence were well-known. Problem drinking and gambling, financial pressure, intergenerational harm and education are all linked to an increased likelihood of family violence.
However, it is the statistics that are known to policymakers, but perhaps not widely acknowledged by the public, that are letting cases fall through the cracks.
At least one-third of New Zealand women experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime, and that jumps to more than half of all women when the definition of violence is widened to include psychological or emotional abuse.
‘‘We simply do not act effectively on early signs of harm and risk. This is a waste of human potential and a failure to use science to take action,’’ the document says.
Evidence showed wider violence could be prevented by wider social understanding of the importance of childhood and reduce adverse experiences in a child’s life.
‘‘Many frontline staff know what is needed, but have caseloads that make effective, long-term collaborative work impossible, lost in a welter of short-term crisis management and ‘one size fits all’ interventions.’’
The discussion paper was launched at an event at Parliament, and received by Justice Under-secretary on Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence Issues Jan Logie.
She said the report would make a ‘‘significant contribution’’ to the Government strategy and she hoped Budget 2019 would hold some of the funding required.
‘‘This is preventable, we are not born with this violence. If we join together and our actions reflect what we know works, we can turn this round.’’