Our greatest resource - Our greatest shame
Alan Marshall
We are among the leaders in the developed world for robbing the innocence of our children. New Zealand is still one of the deadliest countries in the OECD to grow up as a child. To our shame there has been 13 suspicious child deaths in 2015, up from the annual average of 9.
But there is only one acceptable number and that is 0 - one more death from violence is one to many.
The only way to break this epidemic of abuse in our country is to create a ‘culture of care’ that replaces the ‘culture of fear’, beginning in our homes. An abused and traumatised child is going to look for coping mechanisms in the wrong places. That is a pathway to self-destruction and repeating and perpetuating the horrors they have experienced.
Our homes are the perfectly designed incubators for nurturing our most innocent and vulnerable - our next generation of citizens and leaders. We’ve all been there. There is nothing that compares to the amazing dynamic and power of home and family, there is simply nothing that comes close. For better or for worse.
Our greatest opportunity for long term prevention of violence, abuse and murder is to have healthy homes. Healthy on every level.
Resources in systems are necessary but even good systems can only do so much. Fundamentally it’s what happens in our homes that shape our nation.
A consistent and national effort of building healthy homes has to be our priority. Delivering tools and skills for life and for parenting, that would be best learned at an early age. We have the resources let’s use them.
It is an investment in our future – no quick fix but our best opportunity.
No matter what our experience has been, there is always hope. We can not only recover from difficult or abusive relationships, but even more importantly we can become champions of positive and healthy homes.
We can return the innocence of life back to our children – there lies our future.