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Breaking the cycle

By David Armstrong
1 November 2005

(This article was published in The Press on November 1 2005, and the original unedited article is reproduced here.)

Targeting the highest-risk children in their home setting is the most effective way of breaking the cycle of violence, says volunteer helper DAVID ARMSTRONG.

The focus on the children rather than their criminal parents caught my attention, but it was the sheer logic of the numbers that convinced me.

According to long-term research, those responsible for 80% of New Zealand's crimes come from the 20% of the population who were raised in abusive, neglectful homes.

So logic tells me that the most effective way of breaking inter-generational cycles of abuse and criminality is to intervene on behalf of children, as early as possible, in the highest-risk environments.

As an engineer with a social conscience and winding down after 40 years in the workforce, I wanted to give some of my increasing free time to improve the lot of people who never had my luck in life's first lucky dip -- who you draw to be your parents.

Three years ago after reading an article in The Press, I decided that the Family Help Trust in Christchurch was one organisation that had their heads - as well as their hearts - in the right place. Since then I've been doing a few hours administrative work a week to support some inspirational social workers who are doing some really hard yards for children who aren't as lucky as I was.

The Trust staff are the sort of people derided by many inhabitants of Talkback World, whose stock solution to the problems of neglect and abuse is to blame someone else (usually government agencies) and to punish marginalised offenders even further. Whether or not they are right on the issue of punishment, this is of no help to the (usually) indirect victims in the situation - the youngsters growing up in these "family" environments where parents spend more time on drugs and crime than on caring for their children.

When seen this way, the need for early intervention becomes so crucial, and so obvious. Punish the parents if you must, but don't punish their children. And don't assist them, by doing nothing, into becoming the next generation driving the cycle of violence.

The Family Help Trust's policy - home-based early intervention (even before birth) on behalf of the highest risk children -- is supported by the highly respected Christchurch Health and Development Study, a study of 1265 children who were born in Christchurch during mid-1977. These children have now been studied at birth, four months and annual intervals for approaching 20 years.

The study, led by Associate Professor David Fergusson at the Christchurch School of Medicine (Press News Extra, August 10th, Page 15), has produced a wealth of remarkable results, including solid indications that those responsible for 80% of New Zealand's crimes come from abusive/neglectful homes.

Put another way, 80% of crime in New Zealand is committed by 20% of the offender population. The hard logic of this, which resonates to my scientific thinking, means that if the worst 20% of dysfunctional family environments are targeted, violent crime could reduced by up to 80%.

Over-simplistic? Police acknowledge the validity of such techniques by running programmes which target small subsets of the worst offenders in various criminal fields in order to get the most substantial results, both short and long-term.

Another way of looking at the numbers is in dollar terms. Providing its intervention service to one family (one child) for one year costs the Family Help Trust about $5000. Compare this with the costs to society of hospital admissions averaging $8,400 per child abused and injured; residential care for troubled youth at $80,000 per year; and housing offenders in prison at $30,000-$70,000 per year.

This truly is a good example of the old metaphor about the cliff with a fence at the top and an ambulance at the bottom.

(I should point out that the Trust receives no money from central government.)

Several other things impress me about the Trust's policies and procedures. For a start, the number of clients (children) per social worker cannot exceed a maximum number (around 15), avoiding situations where excessive caseloads hamper workers from doing their best with each client.

The client is the child, not the parent, so workers can avoid getting bogged down with entrenched adult behaviour and secondary issues. If the intervention helps the parent also, well and good; but the focus is primarily on the future of the child.

Intervention is based on home visits, and most of the time it's not particularly spectacular or dramatic stuff. The social worker's primary goal is to develop a mentoring and advisory relationship with her client families. This often includes home management, child health, budgeting and building self esteem shattered by the parent's own abusive upbringing.

The parents often say they wish above all else that their children will not go through that familiar pattern - if only they had some help to break the cycle.

Social workers often focus on day to day issues that make it so difficult for parents in poor environments to even do simple parenting, such as helping them to get to the GP and ensuring children are safe within the house and have adequate food and hygiene.

With a new client, their first priority often is to address crises in housing, food, finances and acute family relationships problems. When that is brought under some control the social worker can talk with the parent(s) to help them focus on the wider issues that have been making their life so difficult, and how to ensure their child is not sucked into the same chaos and neglect.

Non-acute follow up continues until the client child reaches primary school, by which time we may well have a young person with a chance of living a reasonably normal life. Preliminary findings after several years of service provision so far show encouraging results.

Even if only one-quarter of these high-risk children are removed from the cycle of abuse, in time this will reduce violent crime by perhaps 20% overall. At least, that's what the logic of the numbers tells me.

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David Armstrong does some voluntary work for the Family Help Trust and through his business, Techwriter Ltd, maintains the Trust website.