Improving the Transition - Gluckman report

June 3, 2011

Big Buddy welcomes some elements in the Gluckman report and questions others.

“We welcome the call for long-term commitments to social programmes,” says CEO Richard Aston, of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor’s Improving the Transition report released this week. “It is what Big Buddy has been doing for years. Our mentoring commitment to the fatherless boys we serve is long-term and we see profound changes happening over years rather than months.”

“However, I strongly object to the Gluckman report including mentoring - along with boot camps and military style training - in a grab bag of programmes of limited effectiveness.”

Richard Aston says there is good evidence to show that mentoring can produce very positive outcomes for children and young people but the evidence also shows that it depends on the style and quality of the mentoring programme.

“Unfortunately, mentoring has become flavour of the month and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, tagging any relationship they have with a young person as mentoring.
Many so-called ‘mentoring’ programmes are short-term and low quality and they clearly do not work.”

While he welcomes evaluations of social programmes and agrees ones that show no evidence of good outcomes should be scrapped, Richard Aston says “what amounts to a posse of scientists to produce this evidence is ludicrous”.

“Big Buddy funded its own evaluation at a cost of $10,000, with quotes for a fully scientific evaluation coming in at $100,000. Scientific evaluation of all the social programmes in New Zealand will cost millions and millions of dollars. Money the country does not have, especially in these tough times. It simply will not happen.”

Richard Aston says while many of the Gluckman report recommendations are fiscally impractical and will not see the light of day; the people working at the coal face of social services continue to strive to increase the happiness and well-being of young people.

“What we need is practical help and support to do our work better. From my many years of experience in mentoring, I know it works. I hear the stories of success every day - stories too easily discounted as simply ‘anecdotal’ by scientific researchers.”

“My challenge to Sir Peter Gluckman and the Government is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If the research community is willing to get alongside us and help, that’s great. We need all the help we can get.”

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