CHILD WELFARE ACT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21968, 27 November 1934, Page 3

CHILD WELFARE ACT

SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS MANY ALLEGED ANOMALIES As the result of\ investigations into | the Child Welfare Act of New Zealand, | ,1925, made by a special sub-committee | set-up by the Auckland branch of the j National Council of Women, a large number of amendments to the Act I have been suggested by the sub-com-mittee. These have" been discussed at i meetings of the council specially con--1 vened for the purpose, and at last | evening's meeting of the council all i were passed, some unanimously. Among the suggested amendments is one dealing with the right to visit • And inspect. This . provides that all j stipendiary magistrates and justices of ! the peace should have the right to visit and inspect at any time, and that parents and friends should have the right of reasonable access in private. Also that official visitors of both sexes should be appointed for ;i term. v The appointment of a woman as superintendent or deputy-superintend-ent was asked for. A section of the Act stated that magistrates were not j required to specify to which place a 1 child was to be sent, and authority was given to the superintendent to transfer a chdd from one place to another. The sub-committee asked that parents should be promptly informed of where a child was sent, or of any transfer of a child. With regard to the Children's Courts, it was suggested that magistrates appointed to preside in Children's Courts should be trained psychologists, with special qualifications for child welfare work, and that justices of the peace appointed to such Courts should include a woman, preferably a mother, these to havo their appointments reviewed at intervals. It was suggested that the section dealing with the admittance to the Children's Courts of the press should be amended to permit of reports being published of proceedings, provided th-it in no case should it be lawful to publish the name of any child, its parents or guardian, or any other name or particulars likely to lead to the identification of the child. The section dealing with the special powers of the Court was considered by the sub-committee to be the most extraordinary one in the Act, as it allowed the Court to make an order in respect to any child without hearing and determining the charge. "Under this section no child is safe, and it would be possible for an official to obtain an order from the magistrate disposing of a child whom he had not seen and in regard to whom no charge j had been proved," the sub-committee j reported. It was suggested that this | section should be deleted from the | Act.

Another proposed amendment was that an honorary Board of Child Welfare should be set up in of .the four main centres, consisting of the associates of the Children's Courts and certain others interested in child welfare appointed by the Government. Such a board should investigate 'ill complaints, act in all matters in dispute between the department and parents or inmates, and act as official visitors. It was also asked that the right of appeal against decisions of the Children's Courts should be granted in a similar manner to that provided in the English Act for Children and Young Persons, 1932.