Parent help gone despite Moko case
Govt dumps support just as tragic events prove its worth.
Iwas asked this week, during an interview, whether anything would change as a result of the huge outpouring of grief and anger over the death of Moko Rangitoheriri. The sad answer is, it depends. If we channel all of our anger and our desire for change into the repercussions for the perpetrators of horrific violence, then probably not. Yes, sentences matter and yes, calling a crime what it is matters, but that changes virtually nothing for the next child.
Real change will mean channelling our energy into something less tangible, in the hope that 20 years down the track, it will pay off. And herein lies the problem – early intervention is totally counter-intuitive on every political test. First, it requires investment up front. Sure, it will produce a pay-off, but unless you’re a politician in Sweden with a 20-year term, you almost certainly won’t be the one to benefit from it. Second, it can be hard to measure. How do you know how many children weren’t harmed because of the programmes you implemented? And finally, to be honest, it can sound a bit soft and fluffy. After the horrific murder of a child, people rarely rally around with placards that say ‘‘invest in early intervention and raising our next generation of parents … and throw away the key’’.
Yet that’s the answer. We have to do the politically counter-intuitive thing, because it is the only thing that will work.
If it was easy, surely we would be doing it now. Instead, we appear to be doing the exact opposite. Take for example Parents as First Teachers (Paft) – a programme that uses educators, ex-nurses and social workers to teach parents about their child’s growth and development. It’s intensive, it’s in the home, and it’s currently working with roughly 6000 parents and their babies.
The long-term aims of the programme are solid – exactly what we’d need and want in a programme like this: Detect any health issues or developmental delays nice and early; give parents and whanau lots of support and connections to other services; build decent trusting relationships with someone who can support the family and ultimately, prevent child abuse and neglect.
Last week I visited some Paft educators. They shared with me the story of a mum in a violent and dangerous relationship whom they had been working hard to build a relationship with. It took a lot of work, and trust, but eventually her Paft educator supported her into a domestic violence programme and everything changed. Since then she has been ‘‘happier, safer, finding purpose and hope.’’
The whole programme costs us the grand sum of $7.2 million, roughly $1200 a family. But apparently that was too much. Last month the Social Development Minister canned Paft, and come September it will be no more.
Anne Tolley has explained that she wants the money for another programme (one that works with fewer families) and that she believes Paft was working with families who didn’t really need the support. I would challenge her to find one family who falls into that category, or at the very least, to evaluate it properly.
We all desperately want to draw a line in the sand in the wake of the horrific death of Moko, but that line needs a huge amount of work built behind it in the form of decent early intervention. Whether that happens or not depends on us.
Sentences matter, but that changes virtually nothing for the next child.