PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A note from Kidpower

We’d like to get everyone thinking ahead to Christmas and the pressures some families find themselves under to spend money, spend lots of time together and conform to the ideals presented to us. Maybe you could release one of our top safety tips a day as a feature or use this as a spring board to get people to write or phone in telling us all what they do to make Christmas and the holiday season successful.

New Zealand, along with many other countries, has higher than usual violence statistics over the holiday period due to people spending more time together, outside pressures, alcohol and more. Let’s see what we can do to help…..

STARTS
The Kidpower Guide to Happy Holidays
National Story
30 November 2011
Summer holidays, Christmas and New Year, BBQs with mates – New Zealand is a great place to be in December but it is also a peak time for family violence and crime fuelled by alcohol. Here at Kidpower we have put our heads together to come up with some simple ways to keep this Holiday Season and safe, happy healthy one for everyone!
Here are Kidpower’s

Top Ten Easy Tips

to help make this Christmas and holiday period
happy and enjoyable
for everyone.

1. Keep it simple – the images in magazines have taken a whole team of professionals to create. Your celebration can look very different AND leave a long lasting happy memory.

2. Ask ahead what the people in your family like about Christmas – it could be they prefer a picnic to a fancy sit down meal, or to go somewhere together instead of buying expensive presents? Find out what people, food and presents they’d like ahead of time and do what you want to do – not what you feel you have to do

3. Less is more - try not to fit too much into a short period of time – you are better off doing a few things well than scrambling madly round trying to please everyone

4. Make sure you have a selection of tasty non alcoholic drinks and a safe, legal driver – so many problems are fuelled into violence by alcohol

5. Make a safety plan before Christmas day if you know your family and friends are prone to get into arguments. Find a safe place for the kids to go should violence erupt, be aware of triggers that set people off and commit to getting away before things turn ugly,

6. If you have invited people who have fought in the past, make sure they know the ground rules about visiting your place – tell them ahead of time that they are very welcome to come along to your party but if they feel they are getting wound up that you expect them to leave before things get out of hand

7. Have safety plans for trips out If you are going somewhere new tell everyone as much as you can about that place and what hazards there are – Water? Strangers? Getting lost? Tell them what they should do to help themselves.

8. Children and adults need time out – make sure you plan for some quiet time as well as busy period

9. New toys will be very attractive to guests – if you have new, precious presents, hide them away before guests arrive.

10. Christmas is about giving – be generous - give yourself the gift of being clear about boundaries, so that no-one misses out on a good time.

Web Links
www.kidpower.org.nz
Organisation Information
• Kidpower Teenpower Fullpower Trust is a charity with offices in Nelson and Auckland. We work nationwide from these bases delivering programmes that teach skills to keep people safe with people they know and people they don’t know. We have programmes for those aged 4-7, 8-12, teens and adults. We also have a programme called Healthy Relationships to help those with cognitive disabilities – a group highly over represented in abuse statistics.
• We are funded through the generosity of several grant making trusts and sponsors. We also charge a small fee where appropriate for our services.

ENDS

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