What kids want – children advise Women’s Refuge

Children need better support and specialist child advocates at Women’s Refuge. More cake and a pillow fort would also be good additions.

That is advice from the horse’s mouth as 19 child ‘‘special advisers’’ reveal in a report published by Women’s Refuge today.

Kids in the Middle asked what children thought about their time at Refuge and looked at how their stories could help design support specifically for children in a series of interviews with tamariki aged 5 to 13.

Their advice has instigated a new year-long pilot programme being launched at seven of the 40 Women’s Refuges across Aotearoa next month.

Supported by the Ministry of Social Development, the pilot, Ko¯kihi nga¯ Rito, would develop a service that accounts for children’s specific needs as clients in their own right.

Women’s Refuge chief executive Dr Ang Jury said it was critical that children were consulted in the research that led to the pilot programme.

‘‘We have seen enough in recent years to know that we have to listen to what children are telling us, that they are sentient beings who have their own thoughts, understandings and strategies for getting on in the world. Some of their ideas are pretty damn good, if we would just stop and listen to them.’’

Those ideas included improving the physical environment for youngsters at Refuges and having advocates solely focused on what the children needed.

Advocating on behalf of that child ‘‘not as an adjunct to mum but as a little person in their own right’’, was essential, Jury said.

The research emphasised the need to have the right people in place to support children after family violence, Jury said, adding that in Aotearoa and internationally, services have tended to work either with children or with family violence but rarely both simultaneously.

The shift to a focus on children had not come about sooner because there was a long queue of things Women’s Refuge had to consider in keeping those facing family violence safe, she said.

‘‘The whole world has been slow coming to the party when it comes to listening to what kids are saying.’’