Aid groups ‘tripping over each other’

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 6

Aid groups ‘tripping over each other’

PA Wellington Community support groups are tripping over each other says Sir Clinton Roper, chairman of the Committee of Inquiry into Violence. Sir Clinton said yesterday during the Wellington hearing that he had heard of one family that had 14 organisations trying to help it. “I didn’t realise just how many groups there are in this country working towards the same end with no apparent co-ordi-nation,” he said. “Is there not a need for some sort of rationalisation?” The six-member committee heard verbal submissions from five groups during the first day of the three-day Wellington hearing. The committee sat in Christchurch last month. It comprises Sir Clinton;

a senior schoolmistress, Ms Briar Diamond; a barrister and solicitor, Mr Michael Guest; a youth and community worker, Ms Anne Tia; a psychiatrist; Mr Peter McGeorge; and a Maori worker, Sir Norman Perry. Spokeswomen for the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges, Ms Rosemary Ash and Ms Roma Blazer, said there were too few places for men to go for help with their violence. Men were reluctant to seek help and usually blamed their outbursts on their wives or other circumstances. “Mandatory referral from court into courses for men would help a lot,” they said. When asked whether including violent psychiatric records on the police Wanganui computer would be useful to victims

of domestic violence, they said: “There would be some real advantages for the violent person and the victim.” Children were quick to reflect what they had grown up with and often battered women’s sons acted aggressively while girls were quite submissive. When men worked in refuges young boys would walk up to them and thump them on the arm as a form of greeting. The National Council of Women said it opposed harsher penalties for criminal offences. "We would like to see the money spent in more positive ways than keeping people in prison,” said a spokeswoman, Ms Janet Hesketh. One of the council’s main recommendations for combating violencewas improving parenting.

Some of its suggestions were: • Positive reinforcement of the value of children and parenting, including the status of women who elect to be housewives. • Showing good television programmes on parenting at times when parents are likely to be able to watch. • A Government-sub-sidised emergency childcare system for times of stress and sickness, particularly for the rural community. • Promotion of permanent part-time employment to cater for career and parental needs. The council said improved literacy was important in combating violence. “Prison people have commented that a lack of verbal skills leads people to use their fists.”