Media release
15 October 2012
For immediate release


Rural Women NZ welcomes White Paper on Vulnerable Children

Rural Women New Zealand welcomes the White Paper for Vulnerable Children, seeing it as a sincere and thorough examination of the situation for children in this country.

“The ambulance is moving nearer to the top of the cliff,” says Rural Women NZ spokesperson, Pam Thomlinson, “but we still have some way to go, especially to address the specific issues surrounding rural children.”

“The rural perspective still needs to be acknowledged and reflected in the new strategies and in particular there needs to be sufficient funding so that rural communities have the same access to services as urban people, such as post-natal and ante-natal care and school support.

“On the plus side, we applaud the more co-ordinated approach to protecting vulnerable children, the Child Protect phone line, more training for professionals and local multi-disciplinary children’s teams.

“Involving the local community is also very important, especially in rural areas where people can be isolated and abuse hidden.

“Vulnerable children can be living in families that are quite transient, so the requirement for different agencies to work more closely together, and the web-based national database on vulnerable children, are also positive moves.”

ENDS

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