S.K.I.P. update

A southern region “champions gathering” of successful applicants for the S.K.I.P. programme was held recently in Christchurch.

The Father & Child Trust presentation was very warmly received by the other groups. The 10 minute talk was focused around the fact that every family has a father somewhere in the mix, and one of the key factors in positive parenting is collective parenting.

The Father & Child Trust module is currently being constructed, and should be ready for presenting in the next few weeks.

Drop-In Centre Once Again

Five years after having been forced to give up a drop-in place for father for funding reasons, the Christchurch-based Father & Child Trust is once again easily accessible for fathers and children dropping in.

The new ground-floor premises provide room for resource display, meetings and playing children without having to combine office and drop-in space in the same room.

For the first time since its creation in 1997 the Trust can offer ground floor facilities for drop-ins, access to which is entirely under its control. And not since 1999 has the Trust been able to provide regular staffing at least during office hours.

The expansion has become possible due to financial support from the Christchurch City Council and a contract with the Ministry of Social Development for the delivery of a positive parenting programme.

For the last 2.5 years the Trust had been located at the Plunket regional headquarters, where space became too small for the Trust’s needs.

Women’s Refuge Involved in Dubious Child Uplifting.

A Women’s Refuge worker assisted in forcibly removing a 3 year old boy from his father in Christchurch, and driving him several hundred kilometers to a hidden location, where his mother was waiting for him.

The worker assisted in executing a Custody Warrant with the police, issued only two days after the father failed to return the boy.

He was supposed to return the boy not to the mother, who is understood to hide at a South Island Women’s Refuge from a violent ex-partner, to whose child she had recently given birth, but to a go-between.

The father had approached the Father & Child Trust with concerns for his child’s safety, if returned to the mother.

Father & Child worker Kori Bragg, who had been in personal contact with father and son several times over the week preceding the uplift, has observed the boy to be settled in his present environment, and well bonded to his father, who also reported that the boy’s health had improved after he had taken over care of him.

The father reported that the worker involved in uplifting the boy had told him he had now ‘lost all rights to his child’.

Father & Child Trust coordinator Harald Breiding-Buss says he is “greatly disturbed by the unprofessionality of the Women’s Refuge worker’s actions and words.

“Removing a child of that age from his primary caregiver at the time in this fashion by people basically unknown to him is not something any professional would do unless there were grave concerns for the child’s safety”, says Breiding-Buss.

“And the claim that the father has lost rights to his child is ignorant at best. A child’s right to meaningful contact with both parents is a human right enshrined in international law”.

Breiding-Buss also expressed ‘surprise’ at the issue of a custody warrant without prior consultation with the father to find out whether there are valid reasons for keeping the child with him.

The boy, whose name cannot be disclosed under current law, is now out of reach of any contact by his father, and the Trust has asked Child Youth and Family to keep an eye on the boy’s safety.

M.Y.D. to Focus on Teen Dads

The Ministry of Youth Development (MYD) will roll out some initiative for teenage fathers in the upcoming financial year, although it has not yet been further specified what it will look like.

Teenage fathers made it on to the political agenda after a study conducted by the Father & Child Trust showed that teenage fathers are highly motivated but poorly supported.

Many papers and magazines, including the NZ Herald, The Press and The Listener have run large features on teenage fathers in the last 8-12 months, often quoting the Trust study in detail.

The Trust hopes to be able to start a mentoring programme for teenage fathers in Christchurch next year, and also providing social back-up support to facilitate long-term involvement of the young father with his child.

New Changes to Aussie Family Law

A new overhaul of Australia’s Family Law aims to crack down on false allegations of violence or abuse and on obstruction of access to a child. The proposed amendments to the Family Law Act will also require compulsory mediation for the parents and strengthen the concept of joint decision-making.

The law change comes less than 10 years after the Act had last been reformed, then abolishing the concept of custody and encouraging shared parenting after separation – changes that have only last year been adopted in New Zealand with the Care of Children Act.

However both Australian fathers’ rights groups and law experts say virtually nothing had changed, and parents still have a variety of tools to prevent the other parent from having any influence over the child’s life.

The Australian government plans to back up the law with a nationwide network of Family Relationship Centres which will help parents draw up an agreement about a child’s parenting after separation.

Together with compulsory mediation this is hoped to discourage parents to go to Court over their children.

It is estimated that about 40% of relationships with a dependent child in Australia break up, and in about 12% of cases the children end up living mainly with the father (New Zealand: around 15%).

However, fathers’ groups warn that the new measures could still fail if the issue of radical feminist views is not addressed in those organisations picked to run the Family Relationship Centres.

Special Mag for New Dads

Plans are afoot to produce a free special edition of Father & Child for fathers of newborns, to be distributed through hospitals.

This would be the second such edition: the first had been produced in the year 2000 and distributed through Christchurch and Canterbury hospitals only. The Father & Child editorial team is hoping to achieve wider coverage this time around.

The New Dads Edition will cover many of the topics of the 2000 publication, including breastfeeding, birth stories and postnatal depression. New features will include some special situations such as fathers not in a relationship with the mother of the child, and stories about the ‘homecoming’ with the baby.

Survey Focuses On Smacking

A new survey of discipline in the home claims to have found physical punishment is used extensively on children. The study, commissioned by the Save the Children charity, interviewed 80 children aged five to 14 years.

It found that 92% of the children had experienced hitting or smacking and 40% of five to seven-year-olds reported being hit around the face, head or back.

Survey author Terry Dobbs says many of the children said they were hit out of anger. The majority said being smacked was often the first reaction of parents to something they did wrong. They also reported they were most often smacked for hurting others and were hit more often by men.

Dobbs says “many” of the children “voiced concern about the dangers of smacking” and thought “other types of punishment would be more effective”.

Save the Children says the research shows too many children are on the receiving end of physical punishment. Children’s advocates say the survey does accurately reflect what is happening in New Zealand.

Former children’s commissioner Dr Ian Hassall says New Zealanders do tend to hit children and surveys such as this one are useful as it makes people face the truth.

Judicial Conduct Commissioner Appointed

A new judicial complaints process became reality from August 1 2005, with “The Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004” coming into effect.

According to the media statement issued by the government, the Act “establishes a transparent and accessible process for people to make complaints about the conduct of Judges, and allows for a full investigation of those complaints”.

Ian Haynes ONZM has been appointed to the role of Judicial Conduct Commissioner. Attorney General Michael Cullen described Mr. Haynes as a “long-standing and prominent member of the legal profession” and said he was “superbly qualified for the job”.

The Act aims to strengthen the link between complainants, parliament, and the courts. If a complaint is upheld, governments can now effectively remove a judge on the basis of that complaint.

This has big consequences for parents who have felt either powerless in court cases involving the custody of their children, or that they were treated unfairly by a judge or other official in the Family Court.

New Book For New Dads

This down-to-earth book doesn’t pretend to know all the answers to every parenting question, which is why it is such a useful resource for first-time fathers.

Australians Tony White and Dr. Graeme Russell jointly have more than 30 years experience in the field of parenting, helping men fully experience the joys of fatherhood.

Useful tips are combined with fathers’ personal experiences of being a Dad. Lots of photo’s, cartoons, different fonts and graphics add to the visual appeal, and make this book both very informative and pleasurable to read.

Practical and straightforward, this book fully acknowledges the vital importance of fathers in families, and delivers the message in an educated non-patronising way.

by Hugh Joughin