Meth use hurting families
A jump in methamphetaminerelated problems is causing concern for an Invercargill Ministry of Children social worker.
Oranga Tamariki supervisor Fay said she had noticed the rise in people being on meth in the south.
‘‘Things like meth, it’s featuring hugely in terms of clients, and that makes some people unpredictable,’’ Fay said.
Today is national Social Workers Day, a day to shine a light on those working with the community’s most vulnerable people.
Fay said it was around neglect, where parents were using drugs and not caring for their children’s basic needs.
Oranga Tamariki did do drug testing but clients had to agree to it, Fay said.
Site manager Raewyn Hubbard said in the past they would receive notifications to do with cannabis but now meth had taken over.
‘‘It’s a strong feature in notifications now, which is an indicator that we have a bigger problem in our community.
‘‘It would be quite common to have notifications where the parents were using or selling [meth], or both.’’
Hubbard said it was clear that this drug abuse caused damage to families and the government organisation had strengthened its ties with other agencies to keep up.
‘‘Oranga Tamariki has taken quite a strong stance with working with our community partners, so that means police, health and education, so that information is probably more available to us than it was historically.’’
‘‘The police will give us stats on [methamphetamine] and we work together around common problems in our community.’’
Fay said her experience in dealing with this rising issue had meant staff were exposed to the risks in their day-to-day work.
‘‘I think we’ve all had experiences now from people using the stuff, sitting in interview rooms with people twitching and the other things they do.’’
Hubbard said there were other concerns with the current state of housing, in some cases wha¯ nau were living in houses with three other families.
The positive satisfaction of the job was what kept these social workers in their profession, she said. ‘‘It’s Social Workers Day, and for me I’m very proud of my staff, for them coming in here every day and dealing with our really high-risk complex families, and every day they try to get good outcomes for those families.’’