ECC on Vulnerable Children

White Paper will save many, but comes with ‘fish hooks’

The White Paper for Vulnerable Children is likely to see many saved from neglect and abuse, but comes with ‘fish hooks’, says the largest representative body of licensed early childhood centres in New Zealand.

Early Childhood Council (ECC) CEO Peter Reynolds said today (11 October) that his organisation was concerned about the idea that everyone working with children should report suspected abuse or neglect.

“If this was not handled very carefully, there was risk of ‘irreparable damage’ to relationships of trust between teachers and at-risk families”, he said.

“The result might be reluctance to attend early childhood education or reluctance to seek help from teachers. And the consequences of this could be increased vulnerability for some children.”

Mr Reynolds said, however, that the white paper addressed significant omissions in the current system, and was likely ‘to result in substantial improvements overall’.

The ECC was especially supportive of both the requirement for different agencies to work more closely together, and the web-based system that would enable child-focused workers to access and contribute to a national database on vulnerable children, he said.

‘Abused children tend to be transient and hard to keep tabs on. These two changes, jointly, will mean they will be less likely to disappear from the radar.’

Mr Reynolds said the ECC supported the idea that workers such as teachers should be better trained to recognise the signs of abuse and to take effective action.

And supported also the establishment of the proposed Child Protect telephone line for the public to report child abuse.

There remained, however, ‘a question mark over whether or not the aspirations of the White Paper will be financed adequately’.

The Early Childhood Council has more than 1100 early childhood member centres, about 30% of which are community-owned and about 70% of which are commercially owned. Its members employ more than 7000 staff, and care for tens of thousands of children.