Five years ago when the Herald focused its attention on the state of children in New Zealand we employed a secret weapon: we did not point the finger of blame.

The reason was two-fold. It recognised that the well-being of our young people is a shared responsibility and it also allowed a positive dialogue because groups were not forced into defensive positions.

Our children: A 5-year review, published this past weekend, similarly did not set out to sheet home responsibility in those areas where the passage of time has led to little improvement. Our reporters, however, could not ignore the comments of those they sought out to gauge whether the young fare better or worse than in 1997.

Too often those comments lay the problem at the Government's door - be it this Administration or its predecessor. Take social worker Henry Maea, struggling with the consequences of poverty in South Auckland. He accuses state agencies of being uncaring and says "we can blame the Government for 99 per cent of these problems".

For all he is completely well-meaning, Mr Maea is wrong. He can blame society, blame the community, but if he thinks "the Government" is responsible for poverty - and, by extension, is able to cure it single-handed - he falls into the same trap that snares too many of us. We seek easy explanations for complex situations.

More importantly, however, we must accept that we have a collective responsibility to ensure the well-being and development of each new generation. Governments may be agents for change but the community should be setting their priorities. If society believes that child health, education and civic responsibility are all-important, it should be telling its political representatives that these are the priorities and sacrifices in other areas are acceptable in order to achieve them. Non-governmental agencies and individuals should then be setting their own agendas to contribute to those aims.

Last weekend's series showed poverty to be a pervasive factor in producing the depressing statistics in many of the Fact Files that accompanied stories of sub-standard housing, illness, abuse and offending. Only in education and reduced youth offending were the indicators on the positive side and, even then, there were warnings that the bottom continued to fall out of the system.

By coincidence (the series was several months in the planning), it precedes the announcement of a Labour Party policy to "eliminate child poverty". It is, as we said, a bold pledge.

Bold in that poverty will not be cured by welfare payments and bold in nailing its colours to the mast of a ship in which self-interested citizens may not see the need to sail.

There is, of course, a pressing need for the community to set about removing the causes of deprivation. Government, the business sector, community groups all have parts to play. Collectively the country has to accept that removing or reducing some of the root causes of a declining child health and welfare record is something for which they all must fight.

At the same time, however, there is a need for a clear message that society expects parents and families to accept their responsibilities. It is the right of every child to expect that it will be raised in a safe (by wide definition) environment that nurtures its development. That is an obligation that most species accept in relation to their offspring.

Poverty denies parents the ability to give children the good things of life. It is also recognised as having a grinding-down effect. It does not, however, excuse abuse or neglect. It does not justify allowing toddlers to go barefoot in winter or allowing a scratch to fester to the point where intravenous antibiotics are needed.

Governments may campaign against poverty and good-hearted people may rail against efforts to date but until individuals accept the role they have in the care of their children we will continue to produce statistics of which none of us can be proud.

This, however, is not a matter of statistics. We are talking about small human beings. When we see pictures of a handful of youngsters whose short lives ended in violent abuse, we demand that something be done. It is time to give as much thought to the 4000 children in welfare care every night of the year, to the one child in every 300 in South Auckland who contracts meningococcal disease and the one-third of Maori children who leave school with no qualifications.

We must stop seeing them as someone else's kids and someone else's problems. They are our children.
 

Source

____________

AUSTRALIA
An Editorial from The Australian on June 10, 2002
Child protection crisis demands tough response

SOMETHING is terribly amiss when society can write off its vulnerable children simply due to limited resources or some misguided belief about family unity at any cost. Yet each year thousands of youngsters are left with parents described by case workers as "ineffectual or incompetent, improper or drug-affected, generally not committed to making the sacrifices needed to rear a child properly".

The crisis in part reflects greater community awareness about child abuse. But it also reflects how changing norms in society are ill-suited to parenthood. Children will always come second when parents are more selfish than selfless, or expect the state to step in when times get tough.

As The Weekend Australian's report The Children We Write Off revealed, child protection services nationwide are at breaking point. Each state or community-based service needs more resources to cope with increased reports of abuse and neglect. A witness to the NSW inquiry into child protection services last month relayed anecdotes from three case workers. One showed how staff who once regarded a child with a broken arm as a case for urgent attention now, with much regret, place it on the unallocated list. Another quoted a worker: "I am getting better every day at managing what we do not do, rather than what we ought to be doing."

Another anecdote detailed how the neglect of children can spread through housing estates and country towns. If case workers took no action over reports that parents were leaving their children outside the pub while inside drinking, then the news spread that this was acceptable conduct. Indeed, NSW Department of Community Services chief Carmel Niland says four in five cases before her staff involve parents affected by drugs and alcohol. Just as Aborigines must confront how substance abuse wrecks families and communities, so must all Australians tackle the scourge across the board. We need to rethink the role alcohol and drugs play in family life. Communities need to decide whether substance-linked child abuse is simply a family issue or a serious crime. We must ask, as NSW Community Services Minister Faye Lo Po' did two years ago, how long we can wait for parents to "get their act into gear, get off drugs and booze and get out of violent relationships".

The solution is not as simple as fighting substance abuse. Associate Professor Dorothy Scott from the University of Melbourne also cites increases in mental illness, violent stepfathers and economic pressures for the surge in abuse cases. Add to that a four-fold rise in divorce rates since the 1970s and a surge in domestic violence. These pressures have combined with mandatory reporting of suspected abuse to create a surge in the workload for child protection services. With resources stretched, services are being rationed daily. Staff know that each decision not to act is a potentially fatal mistake. This in turn increases public pressure for them to be accountable for every decision. So they spend more time on typing and bookwork and less on the job at hand.

Some children are likely to die no matter what protection services do. But that's no excuse for governments to sit on their hands. Where bureaucracies have been found wanting – and that is in most states – greater efficiencies must be found. But no amount of number-crunching can deny the need for more resources to help protect children. Governments also need to focus more on intervention programs that alert parents to their responsibilities and teach them the skills to rear children properly. Where that fails, society must ask whether long-term foster care and adoption might be preferable to short-term removals.

Above all, any response to the child protection crisis demands a clear, stern message: abuse and neglect of children will not be tolerated. Failure to fulfil parental responsibilities must be punished and the privilege of parenthood readily withdrawn. We must stop treating abhorrent adults with kid gloves – for the sake of our children
 

Source