Nit Busters brush-off to affect 110 Kiwi schools

‘‘Nit busters’’ will no longer travel to low-decile schools to make weekly head lice checks as the $1.2 million programme is canned.

KidsCan confirmed the 110 schools covered by the Nit Busters programme would not have access to weekly checks made by its team of 48 women ‘‘health champions’’ from December 8.

The Ministry of Social Development funds the entire programme, but it is run by children’s charity KidsCan, which says it wants to expand its services to more than 700 schools.

Chief executive Julie Chapman said parents would need to pick up the slack, ‘‘so we can invest more and help a greater number of children’’.

She said to retain in-school services to the 700 schools would cost about $12 million. ‘‘We can educate parents to treat children themselves.’’

Chapman said schools would still be able to access treatment products but would need to foot a $4000 bill if they wanted ‘‘a service provider’’. ‘‘Some schools are planning on doing that.’’

Each school that coughs up the extra cash each year can get access to free head lice products, she said.

‘‘It’s not something we have funds to cover ... The programme was always a year-by-year agreement.’’

KidsCan products can be ordered through 700 schools in New Zealand but the organisation wants to expand its reach because of a ‘‘huge demand’’.

Chapman said schools were advised of the cuts this week so the 48 workers affected could find other ‘‘opportunities’’ and ‘‘prepare for the changes’’.

However, Chapman said those opportunities would not be with KidsCan programmes. ‘‘We’re quite streamlined in terms of how we run our programmes.’’

She said the staff would now work to educate parents and ‘‘make that transition as seamless as possible’’ before their jobs were cut.

‘‘Those contractors have been offered a lot of support. A lot of them used it [Nit Busters] as a stepping stone into other work.’’