Duncan Garner: Frontline services now the target of this cost-cutting regime
Duncan Garner: I thought this government wanted outcomes. Well, cut services frontline services and there will be outcomes that are a whole lot worse than we have. Photo / Babiche Martens
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Remember the old health camps for under-nourished and sickly kids from the tough end of town? They began in 1919, and if this government has its way, they will soon be closed for good.
But to these days call them health camps is misleading. They have morphed into a much wider and more sophisticated service run by contracted agency, Stand Tū Māia, where some 300 staff – counsellors, therapists and carers - wear their hearts on their sleeves.
When you hear that young offenders have been referred to Oranga Tamariki, it means they’re placed with Stand Tū Māia. Many of these kids are young, really young, just 8 and 9 years of age. They’re the ones you hear about taking part in a ram raid or robbery.
They’ve seen and been part of things like violence, drugs and crime that no one their age should be aware of let alone witness. Their home lives are often devoid of the basics; they keep bad company and positive role models aren’t around. Many haven’t been in school for years. They lack the basic routines and structures needed in life.
Stand Tū Māia has a well-established legacy in keeping these kids away from a more fraught path ahead and getting them back into school. The service is vital for 4000 of our most vulnerable children and is often the last stop before what’s called statutory care, as in, eventually, the corrections system.
Often Stand Tū Māia is the first place that teaches them what’s wrong, and what they need to do to turn things around. It shows them what is achievable and possible, and what being loved and cared about truly looks like.
So when the National-led government promised frontline services wouldn’t be cut as it went after savings in the public service, what did it think Stand Tū Māia did?
If ever you could call anything a frontline service, this is it. I’d say it’s the very definition of frontline services. Without this service, these young kids would likely get into more and more serious trouble and stay outside the education system.
But late last month, due to government financial constraints, Stand Tū Māia was shocked to learn the service would end on January 4.