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Sterilisation unnecessary when less extreme interventions will stop child abuse

Perspective article, by Dr Annabel Taylor,
Published in The Press, 11 March 2010

Act Party law and order spokesperson David Garrett polarised public opinion last week.

Comments in his party's blog, on recommendations from the Minister of Social Welfare's expert panel on child abuse prevention, incited both vehement support and outraged opposition. Mr Garrett had suggested that parents who abuse their offspring should have their "rights to have more children … constrained," although he subsequently maintained that he was not necessarily advocating sterilisation, just trying to stimulate debate.

He managed that, with headlines, panel discussions, editorials, radio talkback and over 200 comments by visitors to the Stuff website, not to mention condemnation by many of his fellow MPs. Unfortunately, however, the quality of much of the debate has been based on emotion rather than rational analysis.

Although the MP qualified his comment by accurately predicting that it "opens a Pandora's Box of difficult questions," advocating sterilisation for abusive parents is based on a belief that people cannot change.

Mr Garrett concludes his blog entry with the following statement: "The raw reality is that the present system of "interventions" - to use the present jargon - is not working, and children are being abused and killed every day."

This is a defeatist attitude. In fact people can change. Even those whose lifestyles put them at the greatest disadvantage want to be good parents. When given appropriate support, they are invariably able to.

The Family Help Trust has been providing expert, home based support for disadvantaged families for nearly 20 years, during which time it has successfully worked alongside approximately 1,000 families in Canterbury, assisting them to move beyond the type of dysfunctional, chaotic lifestyles where child abuse is frequent.

When faced with the prospect of new parenthood, women, and couples, even from the most catastrophic backgrounds, often find the motivation to change, seeking to provide their children with a better start than they were given themselves. Nobody sets out to be a bad parent, some lack the skills to be good parents, and drugs, crime, violence, inadequate education and poverty make it harder, but they can learn, change their lifestyles in the process, and improve the prospects for their children.

While they may have the will to change, not all these disadvantaged new parents can do so without intensive assistance.

Melissa (not her real name) came onto the Family Help Trust caseload around five years ago, a week before the birth of her fourth child, Ruby. Melissa's other three children, nine-year old Kyle, six-year old Taylor and five-year old Jacob, had been in Child Youth and Family (CYF) care for the previous three years, after Melissa was sentenced to a prison term and had been unable to prove that she was fit to take them back. Their father had a chronic offending history and Melissa had chosen to cut off from him, putting the welfare of her children first.

Melissa's own multiple convictions, for drugs, driving and violence, stemmed from a childhood riddled with drugs, alcohol, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, the latter from the age of five. Given marijuana by her mother, Moana, at the age of 12, Melissa graduated, via helping herself to her Moana's prescription drugs, on to hard drugs, and after being placed in care herself at the age of 12, she left school at 14.

By her mid 20s, Melissa's record of offending had resulted in three prison terms, for crimes predominantly motivated by the need to support her drug addiction. Unsurprisingly, she suffered from clinically diagnosed social phobia and chronic anxiety.

Determined to give Ruby a better start, and to regain the custody of her other children, under the intense guidance of Family Help Trust social worker Cathie Tatupu, Melissa began to address her multiple problems: living within her means on a benefit while negotiating through her numerous debts, attending probation appointments, finding an adequate house and surviving on food parcels.

Within a year she had her drug habit under control, retained the care of Ruby and regained custody of Kyle. Completing an anger management course and a methadone programme were important achievements, which, within the second year helped convince CYF to return Taylor and Jacob to Melissa's care.

With Ruby approaching school age, Melissa no longer needs the day to day contact she had with Cathie five years ago, and is looking forward to establishing a small business working with animals.

As Melissa, and numerous others from the Family Help Trust files have shown, even people with the most adverse backgrounds can change, and can give their children a stable childhood.

Mr Garrett seems to have little faith in any intervention less drastic than the one he has suggested. More likely, perhaps, he does not fully understand how more positive early intervention can prevent child abuse, turn lives around and break the self-perpetuating inter-generational cycle of deprivation, abuse and crime.

These interventions do work, as the Family Help Trust has demonstrated.

Last week's recommendations from the Minister of Social Welfare's panel of experts, which prompted David Garrett's sterilisation suggestion, focus on early intervention to prevent child abuse. These recommendations follow a similar blueprint to that proven by the Family Help Trust over the past 20 years, and seek to establish the type of intervention necessary to turn around the lives of families like Melissa's.

Mr Garrett and his colleagues on parliament's law and order select committee are welcome to see these methods in practice for themselves. Once they have met some of the families that are turning their lives around, perhaps the parliamentarians will recognise it is time to progress the debate from extreme and defeatist responses, to finding ways to adequately resource effective proven measures to prevent child abuse. If so, these can be extended to all of New Zealand's most vulnerable babies and infants, and therefore properly address our child abuse epidemic.

[Dr Annabel Taylor teaches social policy and social work practice at the University of Canterbury School of Social Work and Human Services. She is also chair of the Family Help Trust, a Christchurch-based charity that works to prevent child abuse in families suffering the greatest social dysfunction and deprivation.]

Further information:
Dr Annabel Taylor
Senior Lecturer
School of Social Work and Human Services
University of Canterbury
Tel wk: 0064 3 3642444
Home: 0064 3 3299 526
Mobile: 027 4477183