Hamilton Home For Teen-Age Girls

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 2

Hamilton Home For Teen-Age Girls

A teen-age girls’ home to be opened in Dey Street, Hamilton, at the end of this month, will be the first of its kind in New Zealand. The home designed for short-time care for teen-age girl delinquents has facilities to care for 32 girls and a full-time staff of 18, including a principal, assistant,* nurses and a teacher. The District Child Welfare Officer in Hamilton, Mr A. L. Rounthwaite, said today that the attractively built home

was a prototype. A similar home will be built by the department in Auckland withio the next year. The near-luxurious facilities include a fully equipped gymnasium, a school, crafts and skills sections, and extensive playing fields. In addition there are maximum and medium security and “open house" areas. The skills section includes training facilities for cooking, dressmaking, and arts and crafts, including two pottery wheels and a modern kiln. Mr Rounthwaite said it was intended that some of the facilities of the home should be used by the public. Fot instance, he said, the home had a full-sized gymnasium which would be made available to the nearby Peachgrove Intermediate School, which had a swimming pool. “We hope to encourage an inter-change of facilities in this and in other cases,” he said.

Similar arrangements had been made at the Melville Boys’ Home, where football and softball clubs used facilities as their headquarters. “This tends to keep our young people in touch with the community and this is most desirable,” he said. The purpose would be to teach the girls skills and give them time to re-adjust before sending them to good foster homes, to jobs in the community or, if necessary, to more permanent institutions. A doctor and a psychiatrist would make regular visits and staff conferences would discuss with them case histories and the progress of the girl, he said. '•4H