11 October 2012

For immediate release

Plunket welcomes release of White Paper

New Zealand’s largest provider of services to support the health and development of children under five welcomes today’s release of the government’s White Paper for Vulnerable Children.

Helen Connors, Plunket’s General Manager of Service Development, says it’s encouraging to see children at the centre of the plan.

“It’s vital that we continue to place the needs of New Zealand children at the centre of this process. We have to be sure that all this is going to deliver the best outcomes for them.

“We fully support the focus on agencies sharing information and working together at a community level to improve outcomes for vulnerable children. Connecting children to services is central to improving outcomes.

“Universal services such as maternity care, access to a doctor, early childhood education and Well Child Tamariki Ora make a big contribution to stopping children becoming vulnerable in the first place. This is something that’s important for all children. All New Zealand children deserve the opportunity to get the best possible start in life - not just those identified as vulnerable”, she says.

“Vulnerability is complex – there are a range of contributing factors. A change in circumstance, such as a redundancy or a relationship breakdown, can see a family that was previously managing well become vulnerable within a very short amount of time”.

Mrs Connors says Plunket is also very pleased to see there will be an evidence based approach to improving results and a commitment to developing a well trained workforce.

“A large part of what allows Plunket to deliver the service we do is the level of specialist training of our workforce. We absolutely support the government’s commitment to training.

“The challenge now will be to ensure effective implementation. Now that we’ve got the ‘what’ we need to focus on the ‘how’. How is this going to work in practice? Getting this part of the process right is key to making a real difference.

“It’s vital that we continue to monitor these policies once they are implemented. Once we start seeing the results there needs to be analysis and ongoing improvements to ensure that help is getting to where it is most needed.

“Universal services already play a vital role in early identification of increasing vulnerability and in linking vulnerable families with other services they need. This will be even more important in the implementation of the White Paper”.

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