Author: HEF Admin

  • The smacking referendum – my summary

    As plenty of readers will already know, New Zealanders are currently taking part in a postal referendum on the issue of whether or not a parent smacking a child under any circumstances should be a crime. I have already voted no.

    In 2007 Sue Bradford of the Green Party was successful in having section 59 of the crimes act repealed and replaced with a new version. The former version provided exceptions to the law concerning assault, providing a defence. It permitted parents to use “reasonable force” in the process of correcting their children. This would include, putting a child in her room against her will, administering a smack, placing a child on the “naughty stool” when he didn’t want to go, and so on. These are all uses of force, and are acceptable provided they are done within reason (e.g. hurling a child into her room would not be allowed, and nor would punching a child’s lights out or shoving him into the stool).

    This defence was necessary because of the unique relationship that parents have with children. Obviously it would be illegal for me to select a random adult and force him into a bedroom and require him to stay there. That would be assault and unlawful detention, as would making him sit on a stool against his will, and smacking him would just be common assault. So there was a natural and obvious difference between the rights and protections given to another adult and those given to a child. This is reflected in other aspects of law too (e.g. children can’t buy alcohol, vote, consent to sex, get married, drive a car etc). Those who say, for example “if you can’t do it to an adult, why should you be allowed to do it to a child?” are just not thinking seriously about the issues at all.

    The new section 59 erases this defence completely. In its place here’s what it now says, as law professor Jim Evans pointed out:

    Subsection (1) of the new section 59 allows a parent (or person in the place of a parent) to use force that is reasonable in the circumstances for the purpose of (a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person, (b) preventing the child from engaging in a criminal offence, (c) preventing the child from engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour, or (d) performing the normal daily tasks incidental to good care and parenting.

    So far so good. “But wait a minute,” you might think. “part (d) would allow a smack, provided it was part of good parenting.” Up to this point, maybe, but then check subsection (2) of the new version. It reads: “Nothing in subsection (1) justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.” Subsection (3) adds: “Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).”
    Subsection (2) is where the problem arises, and it is this section that now prompts people to call for a law change. So here is the issue: Force is allowed as part of “good care and parenting,” provided it’s not corrective. Now wait a minute, isn’t correction part of good care and parenting? Confused yet?

    In case it wasn’t unclear enough for parents already, subsection 4 makes it even worse, allowing police discretion when this crime of assault against children is committed, enabling them to decide for themselves which criminal acts to prosecute. So a law that is already now written in doublespeak then gives police sole discretion in deciding whether or not to prosecute, in a case where the defence of reasonable force in correcting a child is no longer available.

    Because of the wording of subsection 1, which refers to “good care and parenting,” and because of the wording of subsection 2 (which for many, introduces confusion), referring to “correction” as though it was excluded from good care and parenting opponents of the law change had the referendum question worded as follows, following the lead of the legislation:

    “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”

    The question was written precisely because of the terms used in the new law, asking new Zealanders, in effect, whether they agreed with the divide that the law proposed between “good care and parenting” in which reasonable force was allowed, and “correction” in which no force at all was allowed.

    I think that the facts as spelled out above are relatively simple and easy to ascertain. However, the supporters of Sue Bradford’s law change, as well as supporters of voting “Yes” in the referendum (the two groups partly overlap) have set out on a campaign of misinformation and deception, along with bungled and careless reading of the law.

    John Roughan is among the worst offenders. In reply to the claim that the law is unclear or possibly inconsistent, he writes that subsection (1) clearly allows smacking, so there’s no ban on smacking here at all! He further implies that anyone who is worried about subsection (2) is supporting the right to inflict “a cold-blooded assault” intended to leave a defenceless child  “in pain and fear.” He claims that there’s absolutely no tension in the law because it’s obvious that “correction” in subsection 2 refers to this type of assault, or to things like “ritual thrashings.”

    Fortunately, uncritical opponents of the referendum (like those who reproduced Roughan’s material online as gospel) weren’t the only ones reading. Roughan’s legally uninformed perspective was itself given a good thrashing in the same newspaper by Professor Emeritus of law at Auckland University, Dr Jim Evans (see here). He explains just how the new section 59 is in fact unclear and a poor piece of legislation.

    Others (e.g. the propaganda site “yesvote”) have claimed that the wording of the referendum question is loaded because it uses the word “good” and repetitive because it uses the word “correction.” This just represents a failure to understand the specific legal reasons why those terms were chosen. They were chosen because subsection (1) allows force as part of good parenting, and yet subsection (2) forbids force in cases of correction. The referendum question then asks parents if correction using force can indeed be part of good parenting. The only ones claiming that the question is loaded or unclear are those who are motivated to do so, namely those who themselves fully understand the question but who want people to vote “Yes.”

    There’s a good list of frequently asked questions over at http://voteno.org.nz/faq.htm

    But isn’t “Vote no” a propaganda group too? Sure, in the sense that they are trying to influence opinion. They do, however, draw on the legal facts of the matter, along with evidence that the new law is not making any positive difference in the abuse rates of children, and they also illustrate the negative impact of the law on good parents in New Zealand. If the facts are in poor taste, then that website’s up to no good!

    So for what it’s worth, if you haven’t voted yet, vote NO.

    To view the comments and to make a comment go to:

    http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/index.php/the-smacking-referendum-my-summary/

  • Barnardos Founder Would Have Voted No

    MEDIA RELEASE

    19 August 2009

    Barnardos Founder Would Have Voted No

    Family First NZ says that a biography on Barnardos founder Dr Thomas Barnardo shows that he clearly understood the difference between appropriate discipline and child abuse.

    In the book Father of Nobody’s Children – a portrait of Dr. Barnardo by Norman Wymer, originally published in 1954, it discusses how he dealt with discipline including ‘mild’ smacking or time-out, but his code included safeguards against too harsh treatment

    “… The schoolmaster’s punishment is to be limited to two strokes on the hand – one on each hand… Any master… who raises his hand or foot to any boy in the house, who is found guilty of having struck a boy with his hand, with a stick, with his foot, or treated him with violence,,, will be peremptorily dismissed. All the Masters are entreated to remember that the law of kindness must govern the house…”

    “It is quite evident that Dr Barnardo who worked with nearly 60,000 children over his lifetime knew the concepts of ‘good parental correction’, non-abusive or light smacking, and the difference between smacking and child abuse,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “It is disappointing that the modern-day Barnardos organisations around the world are willing to spend so much energy and resources refuting the techniques used by their founder with so much success. The love and respect afforded to Dr Barnardo was well deserved and appropriate.”

    “There is no doubt that he would have voted NO in the Referendum and would have opposed a law that criminalised his actions as he sought to support and care for so many children through his work,” says Mr McCoskrie.

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrieNational Director

    Mob. 027 55 555 42



    Sign up now to received FREE email updates of issues affecting families – be informed! http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/Sign_Up

  • Smacking question is clear enough

    http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/70140/smacking-question-clear-enough?page=0%2C0

    Smacking question is clear enough

    Tue, 18 Aug 2009

    Rex Ahdar takes issue with the idea that the “smacking” referendum is ambiguous and confusing.

    Unless you have been living in the Fiordland bush for the last few years, or have just arrived from Latvia, you would readily understand the fateful sentence in its cultural context

    People should exercise their democratic rights and vote in the smacking referendum.

    I believe the objections to it are misplaced.

    Some cry, what about the expense? Could not the money have been spent on tackling child abuse? Yes, but the promoters of the referendum are not to blame.

    The government was asked to run the referendum in conjunction with the general election, but it said no.

    The referendum question might have proved an unpalatable, additional reason for voters not to give Labour and the Greens another term.

    It is thus disingenuous for the politicians to cry waste when they had a straightforward opportunity to avoid it.

    Besides, $9 million is not a huge amount when considering an important parental practice and, as the abolitionists of smacking remind us, the welfare of children.

    If we can spend $80 million per year on possum eradication, we can afford a fraction of this on such an important matter of family governance.

    Next, the wording is said to be ambiguous and confusing.

    Really? Read in isolation I suppose one could quibble with its meaning.

    But unless you have been living in the Fiordland bush for the last few years, or have just arrived from Latvia, you would readily understand the fateful sentence in its cultural context.

    The referendum wording is read against the background of the ongoing public controversy over the merits of a law to permit mild corporal punishment of children by their parents.

    The real gripe is not so much that the wording is ambiguous, but that it is slanted.

    Perhaps.

    To me, the offending phrase simply sets the context in which a smack occurs.

    On the other hand, critics contend that smacking and good parental correction are cunningly linked, implying that the two are part and parcel of the same thing.

    Critics refuse to see how a smack can ever be part of good parental correction.

    But again, the proponents of the referendum are not at fault.

    As the Californian experience of referendums shows, the promoters always try to word the thing in a way that favours their desired result.

    Having invested a huge amount of energy to secure the minimum 10% of voters necessary to trigger a referendum, who can blame them? But the real culprit, if any, is the Clerk of the House.

    The clerk is the independent statutory official responsible for vetting the wording and ensuring, in the words of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993, the question put to voters conveys clearly the referendum’s purpose and is capable only of one of two answers.

    The so-called poor wording is the fault of former clerk David McGee QC.

    Next, is the current version of section 59 of the Crimes Act working satisfactorily? Have parents who engaged in a light, non-injurious corporal correction (a smack) been prosecuted? The answer, according to Family First’s investigations, is yes.

    And those who have not been prosecuted have still undergone the stress of a police investigation, and probably scrutiny by Child, Youth and Family personnel, too.

    Why the prime minister maintains the present law is working well (and thus no action is needed) is puzzling.

    Looking back, the whole rationale for the law change was suspect, if not illusory.

    Abolitionists, led by Sue Bradford MP, continually raised the spectre of the abuser who sheltered behind the section 59 defence and was thereby acquitted of blatant thuggery by a feeble jury.

    The celebrated and deliberately vague examples usually cite the father who beat his son with a hunk of wood and the mother who viciously used a horsewhip on her son.

    A closer inspection of the facts reveals another story.

    The Havelock North father hastily used a thin piece of kindling (a foot long and 2cm thick) on his 8-year-old son’s backside following an admitted incident of stealing by the boy.

    This is hardly the ominous piece of four-by-two that is typically asserted.

    The Timaru mother did use an 18-inch long and half-inch thick riding crop, but in urgent response to her 12-year-old son’s attempt to hit his stepfather on the head with a softball bat.

    On both occasions, the juries decided that the parents’ response was reasonable in all the circumstances.

    At best, this repetition of the-abuser-was-acquitted tales is sloppy.

    At worst, it is calculated and deliberate misrepresentation.

    The smacking defence-justified-abuse gambit is really just a specious ploy to undermine a law that was working satisfactorily.

    It is sleight of hand designed to divert attention away from the abolitionist’s real objection, which is philosophical from start to finish.

    The previous law did not permit physical abuse by parents to go unpunished.

    The social science evidence on the effects of smacking on children does not show that it is harmful.

    The Otago University Children’s Issues Centres 2004 report said: “While it is clear from the research that severe and harsh punishment [both physical or other] is potentially very risky for children’s development, occasional physical punishment occurs in many families and may not have long-term negative effects as long as it is used in a climate of warmth and love, where the predominant mode of relating to children is positive.

    “To say that smacking is associated with children’s aggression, under-achievement, depression is mischievous.

    “The observation that two things are associated [or correlated] does not mean there is a causal connection between them.”

    Faced with these inconvenient facts, opponents of smacking are relegated to asserting their personal convictions.

    I have no doubt that abolitionists sincerely believe that corporal punishment of children is morally wrong.

    They are entitled to their view.

    If their liberal sensibilities are offended, let them exercise their own parental prerogatives by adopting other modes of discipline on their children.

    I will let them grapple with the question of whether time out (false imprisonment, if an adult was the one being confined), removal of pocket money (deprivation of property) and so on raise no ethical concerns.

    Let me, along with the other 83% of New Zealanders who do not share their moral sentiments, choose the form of discipline that we consider is sound. – Rex Ahdar

  • Distinguishing between correction and violence

    http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/69422/distinguishing-between-correction-and-violence

    Distinguishing between correction and violence

    Thu, 13 Aug 2009Sue Bradford

    Sue Bradford

    Most parents do not seek to harm their children but want the best for them, writes Michael Reid.

    What does that imply with respect to the “smacking” referendum?

    “When war comes, the first casualty is truth.”

    In the debate over smacking and the associated referendum, the definition of violence is the casualty.

    Advocates of the “yes” vote get away with using the word “violence” all the time.

    They don’t distinguish between responsible parents who use a light smack from those using implements to inflict severe pain.

    Emotive words like “belting”, “beating” and “whacking” all blur the distinction.

    But the difference between parental correction and violence is critical.

    The occasional smack is not the same as abuse with jug cords, belts and sticks.

    The latter is totally unacceptable and most parents know the difference – they always have.

    This debate is not about legal rights but the lived experience of family life.

    Despite hysteria to the contrary, those opposing Sue Bradford’s law are not condoning smacking, but they know that responsible parenting requires a range of skills and techniques to do the job.

    Many voting “no” are upset with the state limiting their options and making them criminals if they dare to smack.

    The caveat that investigating police exercise discretion on a case-by-case basis prior to charges being laid doesn’t allay parental fears nor promote consistency in enforcement, which is the basis of good law.

    Ms Bradford herself is confused: she doesn’t want light smacking criminalised, but then claims she wants children to be “free from violence”.

    Good law, though, has to be enforceable and this equivocation only muddies the waters of what is meant by violence.

    The former s.59 of the Crimes Act assumed responsible parenting and respected parental freedom up to a point.

    Where real abuse occurred, the police were right to prosecute.

    Ms Bradford’s amendment did not come about by the wholesale failure of s.59 but by the sustained activism of certain groups bent on popularising particular understandings of children’s rights.

    Children are not marching in the streets demanding reform; they want loving, committed parents, not more legal rights.

    As one writer has put it, a child is protected because she is loved, not because she has a right to be protected.

    Supporters claim to be protecting children by extending to them the same rights as others to be free from violence.

    This sounds plausible, but is it? The parent-child relationship is a blood-tie, intergenerational bond that is different in essence to two adults on the street where one decides to hit the other.

    Parenting involves a responsibility to nurture and provide for the child from infancy to independence around 18 years of age.

    Most parents do not seek to harm their children but want the best for them and often harbour a desire they will do better in life than they have.

    In this sense, the “best interests of the child” (that hackneyed notion enshrined in the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) is fleshed out every day in families when parents love, nurture, discipline and sacrifice for their children.

    Moreover, the parent-child relationship has never been equal in terms of political power.

    Conflict always involves the will of the adult against that of the child.

    “Stop hitting your brother”; “go to your room”; “pick up your clothes” involve parents asserting their will.

    Only in recent times and as a result of the waffle offered by discourse analysis have theorists conceptualised normal tensions as a power issue in any political sense.

    This has created an artificial atmosphere of competing rights between parents and children.

    When rights clash, whose rights are most right?This is the where the yes supporters depart from the no voters in the referendum.

    The former see the world in terms of child’s legal rights but the latter just want to get on with parenting without running foul of the law for using the odd smack.

    Finally, the parent-child bond is unique among human relationships. It endures.

    No friendship or marriage lasts quite as long.

    For the child, the dynamic shifts from infant dependence through to independence as an adult.

    For parents, it moves from independence and active parenting through to (in many cases) a reliance on children in old age.

    That limited period in early childhood when smacking as one of a range of parenting techniques should be tolerated has to be seen in this long-term context of reciprocal responsibilities.

    Some parents, sadly, rely too heavily on smacking while others go well beyond it and abuse children. They are violent.

    The rate of child abuse in New Zealand is horrific.

    But let’s target the real causes rather than create a hypersensitive rights culture where responsible parents are treated as criminals for using the occasional smack.

    Let’s also distinguish between parental correction and violence.

    The Bradford law fails to do so and is confusing, presumptive and placing undue pressure on police resources.

    What an irony that we have rampant youth crime and unprecedented violence in our streets – yes, violence – yet we seem absorbed with this issue.

    And by the way, all this bunkum about a confusing referendum question: if you like the Bradford law, vote yes; if you don’t, vote no. Simple.

    • Dr Michael Reid is a parent, teacher, and author of the 2006 book From Innocents to Agents: children and children’s rights in New Zealand.

  • Children’s rights in the society

    Ruby Harrold-Claesson sent us this translated article:

    http://www.nkmr.org/english/childrens_rights_in_the_society.htm

    Children’s rights in the

    society

    By Annette Westöö, Göteborg

    This year, marks the thirtieth year since Sweden became the first in the world to prohibit child-smacking. The law has attracted much attention internationally and Sweden is considered in large parts of the world as a pioneer country in terms of children’s rights. Bris (Children’s Rights in the Society) notes the anniversary with a campaign where they ask the question “What has actually happened?” It is a sensible question, because now is the time to look back on these thirty years and see what has been achieved. How much is there behind all Sweden’s fine words about the rights of the children?

    Five years before the anti-smacking law was passed the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) passed another controversial law: that of free abortion. Since 1974, this decision led to over 1 million children being killed in our country. The consequences of the two laws in combination are absurd. In Sweden, a parent is prosecuted and tried in court for a slap in the face. The same parents can be – completely within boundaries of the law – to poison, maim and kill their children if they are younger than 18 weeks old. Smacking a child can lead to police action, whereas that same child could have had its head crushed by an adult at an earlier stage of its development – quite legally. The situation is bizarre and profoundly tragic. Save the Children, Bris and other organizations that claim to protect children’s rights – as far as I know – do not lift a finger to save the unborn children.

    Where is the logic? I who am approximately contemporary with these laws, I am experiencing great pain over the disaster that contempt for the smallest children’s rights has meant for Sweden. The Sweden that we from the late seventies have grown up in has been deprived of one million citizens. People who would have lived among us as our family members, neighbours, schoolmates, colleagues, friends and spouses. People who would have helped to build this country and take care of the older generation. People who are irreplaceable and unique.

    Can all you experts, ideologues and opinion leaders – especially those from the forties – who contributed to the passing of these two laws give me an explanation?

    What were you really thinking?

    Annette Westöö, born 1977, is a MA in Religious Knowledge and she is a teacher for seven years. She is the vice president of the pro-life organisation “Human Rights for the Unborn” and she is an active member of the Swedish Church. Annette Westöö has for many years been an active protector of children’s and their families’ rights. During the past years she has written several debate articles and opinion pieces about the rights of the unborn child.

    The Swedish version of this article has been sent to several Swedish newspapers, but so far its fate is unknown. It is published here with the kind consent of the author.

    Destroying the Family: Swedish style

    A family flees from the Welfare State

    Back to Articles

    Back to Main

    Original Article:

    Barnens rätt i samhället

    Annette Westöö, Göteborg

    I år är det trettio år sedan Sverige blev först ut i världen med att förbjuda barnaga. Lagen har väckt stor uppmärksamhet internationellt och Sverige betraktas i stora delar av världen som ett föregångsland när det gäller barns rättigheter. Bris uppmärksammar jubileet i en kampanj där man ställer frågan ”Vad har egentligen hänt?”. Det är en klok fråga, för nu är det tid att blicka bakåt på dessa trettio år och se vad som åstadkommits. Hur mycket ligger det egentligen bakom Sveriges alla vackra ord om barnens rätt?

    Fem år före anti-agalagens tillkomst stiftade Sveriges riksdag en annan kontroversiell lag: den om fri abort. Sedan 1974 har detta beslut lett till över en miljon barns död i vårt land. Följderna av de båda lagarna i kombination är absurda. I Sverige kan en förälder åtalas och dömas i domstol för en örfil. Samma förälder kan – helt inom lagens råmärken – låta förgifta, lemlästa och döda sitt barn om det är yngre än 18 veckor. En dask riktad mot ett barn kan leda till polisingripanden, medan detta barn kunde ha fått sitt huvud krossat av en vuxen i ett tidigare stadium av sin utveckling –  helt lagligt. Situationen är bisarr och bottenlöst tragisk. Rädda barnen, Bris och andra organisationer som säger sig värna om barns rättigheter har vad jag vet inte lyft ett finger för att rädda de ofödda barnen. Var finns logiken?

    Jag, som är ungefär jämnårig med dessa lagar, upplever stor smärta över den katastrof som föraktet för de minsta barnens rättigheter har inneburit för Sverige. Det Sverige som vi sena sjuttiotalister har vuxit upp i saknar en miljon medborgare. Människor som skulle ha levt ibland oss som våra familjemedlemmar, grannar, skolkamrater, kollegor, vänner och makar. Människor som skulle ha hjälpt till att bygga det här landet och ta hand om den äldre generationen. Människor som är oersättliga och unika.

    Kan alla ni experter, ideologer och opinionsbildare – förmodligen främst fyrtiotalister – som var med och drev fram dessa båda lagar ge mig en förklaring?

    Hur tänkte ni, egentligen?

  • Referendum Voting Papers

    If you…

    didn’t receive your voting papers
    have lost your voting papers
    Voted yes when you meant to vote NO

    then go here:

    http://www.elections.org.nz/app/cir-reissue/

    or ring 0800 36 76 56

  • REFERENDUM COUNTDOWN!

    17 Aug 2009

    REFERENDUM COUNTDOWN!

    Just 4 days to go!

    This is our final ad in today’s NZ Herald . Please be sure to send your voting forms back, and encourage friends, family and work colleagues to do likewise. We’ll let you know the final result as soon as we hear late Friday night.

    MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT!

    www.familyfirst.org.nz

  • Who can protect our children?

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10591094&pnum=0

    Who can protect our children?

    4:00AM Sunday Aug 16, 2009
    By David Fisher

    Our state services fail to protect some of New Zealand’s most severely abused children and allow them to be “revictimised”, according to research published in an international medical journal.

    It says the child protection system could be seen as a “poorly controlled experiment” through the inability of government agencies to work together on cases of child abuse.

    It follows two cases of alleged child abuse last week in Northland, one of which ended in the death of a 2-year-old. The child in the other case – a 17-month-old – was severely injured.

    Social Development Minister Paula Bennett met the families of the two children on Friday. “Protecting our most vulnerable children is of the highest priority to this Government,” she said afterwards.

    Bennett will this week announce the reintroduction of the Never Shake A Baby Campaign.

    “We are also progressing a plan on how agencies will better work together to ensure an abused child is protected if they have been hospitalised,” she said.

    New figures from Starship hospital show the number of children under two with “inflicted traumatic brain injury” has risen sharply over a 20-year study period. They show that in 1988 one child was admitted with an inflicted head injury. Numbers peaked at 13 in 2006 and most recently at 11 children last year.

    The report, published in the Child Abuse & Neglect International Journal, was written by two Starship doctors Patrick Kelly and Judith MacCormick, and an Auckland health board social worker Rebecca Strange, who works with child abuse victims.

    It studies the fate of 39 children aged under two who were treated at Auckland Hospital for “shaken baby syndrome” during the 1990s. It follows their health and development for up to 17 years.

    The “syndrome” has become a term for traumatic brain injury in infants. One of its common causes is hard, physical shaking of the child.

    Most of the children are referred to in the report as “survivors” – six died in hospital and two others have died since, one 15-months later after complications from the original head injury. They were also mainly Maori – a staggering 77 per cent of the 39 children admitted to hospital.

    By December 2007, the children had grown older – they ranged from nine years to 21 – and concerns about repeat abuse had been raised in 44 per cent of cases. This was a “major concern”, the report said.

    It is particularly critical of the former Child Youth and Family service, now part of the Ministry of Social Development. Investigations of “doubtful quality” by CYF meant reports to the agency of fresh abuse against children – even in front of witnesses – would be treated as unproven, when they likely indicated serious risk.

    While the report found CYF had records in all cases, it also found two of the child deaths were never referred to police. And it highlighted a death where a CYF worker rejected medical evidence of abuse to accept the caregiver’s explanation that the child had choked on a piece of bread.

    None of the surviving children was killed or suffered further brain injury from future abuse, possibly due to involvement by state agencies.

    But the authors said the high number who were again seen by agencies was a “major concern” when the object of intervention was not only to prevent death but to keep children safe.

    Sometimes the agencies were called in afresh to deal with cases of neglect and failing to meet a child’s needs – the tragic consequence of extended family trying to cope with a child who has suffered brain damage from earlier abuse.

    Kelly says New Zealand has seen a steady 20-year climb in the number of children being admitted to hospital with head injuries caused by abuse.

    Having two “fatal or near-fatal” admissions in a week was unusual but Starship normally had several children at any time being treated for serious abuse injuries.

    “Children die, children suffer serious damage, and sometimes it is the result of a few seconds of uncontrollable rage,” he said.

    No one from CYF would be interviewed but in a statement, deputy chief executive Ray Smith said the service had improved.

    “Can we do more? Absolutely – and I’m committed to finding new and better ways to keep children and young people safe.”

    High hopes for baby scheme
    Every new parent in the Auckland area will be spoken to about the dangers of shaking babies in a new government-funded trial.

    Dr Patrick Kelly, a paediatrician at Starship children’s hospital, said there were great hopes the programme would save lives. In it parents will be spoken to “in the first few days after [the birth] to talk about the dangers of shaking a baby”.

    They would then have to sign a sheet of paper acknowledging the discussion and the ways to avoid abuse.

    If successful, the pilot scheme may be rolled out across the country. In the United States it has resulted in a 40 per cent reduction in abuse.

    Health professionals at Starship hope to have it running by the end of this year.

    The Shaken Baby Prevention Programme is being funded by the Ministry of Social Development, and is based on a programme developed by US professor Mark Dias.

    Kelly said the programme was suited to New Zealand’s independent midwife network. The trial was awaiting the appointment of key staff and development of material such as a video.

    Read full report

  • Love and death

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/2756497/Love-and-death

    Love and death

    Sunday Star Times

    Last updated 05:00 16/08/2009
    coffin

    Photo: Brendon O’Hagan
    Many mothers struggle with stress or depression or even serious mental illness and psychosis, yet only the tiniest fraction of those will hurt their child. Is it possible to spot those women?

    THE day after the bodies of Kathleen Flowers and her son Dominic, eight, were found in their Auckland home on July 17, a neighbour was telling reporters how the 47-year-old was "a really good mum" who adored her children. At the double funeral of his brother and mother, Flowers' older son Alex said: "My mother was amazing. She would do whatever it took to make me happy..." But mourners also heard from celebrant Sally Avison that Flowers had been severely depressed and had attempted suicide twice before; that she took her own life that day while her husband James was at work; and that Dominic "did not choose his death". "We understand," said Avison, "the nature of his death was peaceful and gentle." The words are soothing; the reality brutal. Sometimes "good" mothers kill their children. Melissa Dorward was a "good" mother too. A friend told the Dominion Post newspaper that the 31-year-old, who was found dead on July 12 at her Hawke's Bay home alongside the bodies of her two young daughters, Keira, four, and Ellah, two, was "a good lady and a very, very good mum very involved with her children, especially sports clubs and other bits and pieces". Dorward was pregnant when she died, and had two older children, both sons. Professor Sandy Simpson is clinical director of the Auckland Regional Forensic Psychiatry Service. While he has no special knowledge of circumstances behind the Flowers and Dorward deaths, he says it is not out of the ordinary for mothers who kill while mentally ill which is the case in roughly a third of cases to be described as model parents. "For some, they're suicidal and deluded and come to feel they must kill themselves because of how bad the world is and they take the child with them because they believe to leave the child would be a horrendous thing... the symptoms of illness envelop the child and themselves."The ironic thing to get your head around is that the woman's judgement is so seriously troubled by illness that she thinks she's doing the right thing even though she's doing a horrendous thing." In 2000, Simpson was co-author of a study in which he and colleagues interviewed six women who had killed their child or children while mentally ill. Most of the women had been found not guilty on the grounds of insanity, and none had previously been child abusers; there was no history of repeated abuse, and all had a clear intent to kill. As the women recalled the circumstances leading up to the homicides, the theme of trying to be an ideal parent was common. They talked of the special efforts they made for their children, such as mincing steak instead of buying mince, putting aside time to play with their child to make up for taking them shopping, or of choosing to stay home with the children rather than working.
    "You know, I've always sort of wanted to be the perfect mother," said one interview subject. CHILD HOMICIDE IS rare, especially in developed countries, and homicide by mothers rarer still, with an average of around two cases per year in New Zealand. Between 1991 and 2000, 91 children in New Zealand died at the hands of 101 perpetrators. According to analysis by the government's chief social worker, Marie Connolly, 30% of killers were fathers, 24% were mothers, 18% were de facto parents, 18% were relatives or others known to the victims, and 10% were strangers or unknown killers. The most dangerous time for a child is its first 24 hours, during which time homicides are almost always at the hands of mothers. The risk of being killed diminishes steadily with age. Simpson says women who kill their children fall into three main groups (though there is some overlap between them). The largest group (over a third of cases) is women who are child abusers and end up killing a child without necessarily having wished them dead. This encompasses such sensational and appalling cases as the 1991 death of Delcelia Witika, two, at the hands of her mother Tania and Tania's partner Eddi Smith, or the fatal beating of three-year-old Ngatikaura Ngati in 2006 by his mother Maine Ngati and her partner Teusila Fa'asisila. All four perpetrators were found guilty of manslaughter. This kind of killing, says Simpson, is "really the tip of a rather large iceberg" of family violence. And while they attract most public outrage, they are in the sense the least mysterious. "Most parents know that there are moments when we all feel at the limits of our capacity to cope. [But] most parents of any wisdom put the child down gently and walk away until they regain their composure... The question is, what undermines people's ability to walk away?" The answers are familiar and gloomy: the more isolated a mother is, the poorer the parenting she received, the fewer emotional, personal and social resources she has, the greater the odds she will do the wrong thing. Such women, while probably stressed or even slightly depressed, are not typically mentally ill. A second, slightly smaller, category is "neonaticide", where a mother, usually a woman in her teens or early 20s, kills her baby in the hours after birth. "It's usually a concealed or denied pregnancy of a younger, quite isolated women who may be naive, often from strict religious background, who shouldn't have had sex and wound up pregnant," says Simpson. A recent example to receive media attention was that of the Pacific island student at Otago University who in May 2006 gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the toilet of her hall of residence, then placed the infant in a plastic bag and dropped it from a hostel window. She pleaded guilty to infanticide, a charge that recognises diminished intent due to psychological problems, and was sentenced to community work and supervision, which was later cancelled. And then there are the women suffering from major mental illness who make a clear if deluded decision to end their child's life. This makes up another third of maternal homicides. These women are likely to be older, to be married, and to have already had other children. They are also particularly likely to attempt an "extended suicide" killing themselves but first killing their child, "not out of anger or rage", as Simpson describes it, "but out of desperation and love". Particularly awful is the thought they may have wrestled with themselves for some time before killing. "It's usually been a build-up of desperation and feeling that's there's no other way," says Simpson. "Not uncommonly those thoughts were there for some days or weeks; and they were struggling to cope with it or to put them out of their mind." The danger sign, says Simpson, is the presence of psychosis. Psychotic symptoms where there are delusions or hallucinations and a sufferer loses contact with reality can arise from a range of disorders, including schizophrenia, manic episodes, or severe depression. "It doesn't matter necessarily which one of those diagnoses you have," says Simpson. "It's the delusions and hallucinations and disturbed emotional state that are the key bit, because they are the drivers for how you perceive the world and what you believe you must do." Many mothers struggle with stress or depression or even serious mental illness and psychosis, yet only the tiniest fraction of those will hurt their child. Is it possible to spot those women? Not exactly, says Simpson. Predicting an extremely rare event is usually impossible. "But what we do know is that if everybody with symptoms like this got the sort of care they should have, we will prevent many events." Effective treatments for psychotic depression start with medication, followed by talking therapies and the provision of broader support to the person and their family. "If we treated everyone who had major depression with psychotic symptoms, who is involved in a child-caring relationship, we wouldn't know which homicides we'd prevented, but we sure would do so." But there's the catch. When Simpson and colleagues interviewed New Zealand women who had killed children while mentally ill, they learnt that a number of them had been in touch with GPs or mental health services, but had felt unable to talk about their fear that they would harm their child. Others had discussed their fears but "the meaning of what they said wasn't fully understood". A wider US study of female fatal child abusers found some had expressed their fears but were told: "You're a good mother you wouldn't harm your child, would you?" The lesson, says Simpson, is that if a mother says she if fearful she will harm her child "it's a big deal". "A complaint like that isn't a sign that a child needs to be immediately uplifted; that's the thing that people fear and it's a big barrier to seeking the help that they need. "The best way to help is not to diminish that but to say, good on you for telling us how you feel, and let's see how we can support you."