Powerful video on impact of family harm

A powerful new video that uses children to highlight shocking family harm statistics in New Zealand has been hailed as a way of raising awareness of the issue.

The video, posted to the Canterbury police Facebook page on Friday, shows a succession of tamariki holding signs with statistics and comments about domestic violence and its impact.

‘‘This is my ‘normal,’’ one reads, while another, held by a young girl says: ‘‘30 per cent of women in Aotearoa experience physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in their lifetime’’.

‘‘How many of us tamariki are exposed to our mothers being abused?’’ questions a placard held by one young boy. ‘‘We don’t just witness it, we are EXPOSED.’’

The post triggered an outpouring of comments on social media. As of early Saturday evening, it had close to 300 ‘likes’ and had been shared 180 times.

Some commentators used the video to share their own stories of domestic violence. ‘‘I got away. I still can’t use my real name but I got out. If I can, you can. It’s the hardest thing you will ever do, male or female,’’ one wrote.

The oft-quoted statistic is that police attend a family harm related call every five minutes in New Zealand. To illustrate the scale of the problem, police in Canterbury shared their own figures along with the video.

Since the beginning of 2018, each week between Friday evening and Monday morning police had been averaging 95 call-outs for family harm reports. Six days so far this year had topped 40 reports, with 46 being recorded on one day. Multi-agency response Leanne McSkimming, director of the Integrated Safety Response pilot – a multi-agency response to ensure the safety of victims and children and to work with perpetrators to prevent further violence – described the video as powerful.

The model, currently being trialled in Canterbury and the Waikato, brings together a number of organisations including police, Oranga Tamariki, Corrections, district health boards and special- ist family violence groups.

McSkimming credited the pilot for ‘‘saving lives’’ and said the high rate of reported family harm incidents was ‘‘actually a positive’’ because ‘‘we have seen calls to services increasing’’ which she attributed to growing awareness about the issue.

In the past the discussion or lack thereof around family violence painted it as ‘‘something to be ashamed of’’ or ‘‘kept in the shadows’’.

‘‘There’s more calling for services from people seeking help early. And I think that’s the one key thing; people are recognising that the situation they’re in or what’s happening to them isn’t healthy and they need to get some help.’’ Safety plans The pilot involved police referring families with reported family harm. Safety assessment meetings were held seven days a week between the agencies involved, and individual family safety plans were devised for family violence specialists to work on with whanau.

McSkimming said everyone involved in the pilot was ‘‘affected by what happens’’ but said ‘‘we’ve seen so many positive stories’’ both for reformed perpetrators and their victims.

‘‘Many of the perpetrators have been victims themselves and have been involved in intergenerational family violence, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that.’’