Media Release
NELSON TOP REGION FOR VIOLENCE DISCLOSURE
Thursday, October 11, 2007
In the financial year to June 2007 3,817 Work and Income clients disclosed family violence to their case managers.
"The average number of family violence disclosures was 1.5 per 100 beneficiaries," according to welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell.
"Surprisingly this number almost triples to 4.4 in the Nelson region. The number is also significantly larger than the next highest region, Bay of Plenty, at 2.9 disclosures."
"Put another way while the Nelson region is home to less than 4 percent of working age beneficiaries it accounts for over 11 percent of family violence disclosures. "
"Earlier this week the Christchurch Press reported that the Nelson Women's Refuge was turning people away. Their manager, Cindy Kawana claimed the violence is getting worse and said, 'There would currently be six women who we wonder if they will die next time.' "
"There is every likelihood these women are also known to Work and Income who have admitted that there is a significant overlap between their clientèle and that of CYFs. "
"The DPB was historically about enabling women to escape violence yet we appear to have more family violence then ever before. The reality is a steady and secure benefit often makes a single mother attractive to potentially dangerous males; those who would rather spend their own income on drugs and alcohol."
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7 comments:
irpejvugMy maths calculates, from your figures, that Work and Income has over 10,000 clients in the Nelson region (and almost 450 disclosures of family violence).
Both figures are appalling.
Votes in the bank for tax gougers.
Exact figures are 429 disclosures with 9790 clients. Perhaps I should point out that the Nelson region covers Tasman and West Coast. It is one of 11 Work and Income regions covering all of NZ.
Well that is different then.
It is different if you were envisaging just Nelson City. But the whole point of comparisons by rate (per 100 in this case) is to get something meaningful. The fact remains that the Nelson 'region' is showing a disproportionately high number of disclosures.
I had a call from a Nelson reporter who is going to talk to Work and Income about it.
It's not enough to run TV campaigns saying 'violence isn't ok'. A lot more people who deal with the perpetrators and victims need to be talking about what they know. Not about individual cases but in a broader sense. That's another big problem with the govt monopolising social services. Everybody is bound by contractual constraints.
Having said that I know myself in community work speaking out is never as straight forward as we would like it to be.
Point to any situation that this Government is involved in and show me improved results.
Not more money spent on campaigns.
Not greater involvement by more people.
Not better understanding of the issues.
Not just some numbers reducing because they appear on a different list.
Just some real evidence that something has happened that has improved someones lot.
Some real change.
Something that we could hold up to the light and say, this is good, this works.
Nelson figures don't surprise me. We may not have a large Maori or PI population, we do have a hell of a lot of junkies.
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