Parenting Expert Visits Taranaki

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of non accidental child deaths in the Western world with on average 10 children being killed each year by a family member or carer.

Trish Hunt was awarded the Every Child Counts Award in 2008 and the Orangi Kaupapa Trust Award for Services to the Community also in 2008.

She is an expert on neuroscience and parenting and will be running workshops throughout the week in Hawera and New Plymouth.

Trish lives in Greymouth where she is Kaitiaki of the Nurturing the Future Trust.  The Trust recently opened an all purpose community hub where individuals and families can access a range of services.

Trish’s main theme is that our children are our future and by educating parents we can break the cycle of violence that affects so many New Zealand families.

People may think that we don’t have much family violence in Taranaki but they would be wrong.  In the last month Police attended over 120 incidents of family violence 70-80% of those involved children who either experienced or witnessed the violence.

Child abuse is a serious problem in our community.  We urged parents to come along and find out how we wire our children’s brains to be violent adults or non violent adults and how we can give our children the best future possible.

Trish’s was accompanied by a young man who is engaged in her programmes at the Hub in Greymouth and is working to turn his life around. The workshops on brain development of teenagers and of preschoolers aged 0 to 3 ran in Hawera and New Plymouth on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8,9 and 10^th June. Over 150 people attended in New Plymouth and 60 in Hawera.

Along with these we ran a session for professionals in each area. 18 attended in Hawera and 60 in New Plymouth, a great cross section of organisations. What was particularly exciting was that all but one Lawyer for child attended.

Workshops were hosted in both North and South Taranaki.