A very interesting development on the political landscape emerged last week.
The Government had made some critical decisions to ‘reassign’ Family Start contracts for a small number of providers. On the surface one might have been tempted to go for the jugular and criticize the Government for cutting services to assist the most vulnerable families in our communities.
When you consider some of the providers involved it appeared that the Government was set to buy a fight with players like; Te Whanau o Waipareira, Turuki Health services and Papakura Marae who service vulnerable communities. A closer look at this decision leads to more questions.
Was it really about not meeting auditing requirements? Or was it a case of putting the whanau ora cart before the family start horse?
Perhaps neither but Te Whanau o Waipareira was blindsided at a time when they were also establishing themselves to deliver the Governments much promoted charter school model. This same organisation has been a staunch advocate of the Governments ‘whanau ora’ policy and leads a significant National Urban Maori cluster which has secured ‘whanau ora’ funding.
Whatever the case may be, certain ‘dots’ have not been connected by the Government. If there is a serious ambition to lift the educational opportunities for more Maori and Pacific learners then what happens outside of the school gate is just as important as what happens in the classroom.
In order for more Maori children to succeed in life the basics must be taken care of; a warm and loving home, kai on the table and a stable job for the parents.
Family Start is an initiative that works with vulnerable whanau to assist them to model a lifestyle where they all thrive, parents and children. There is a lot of baggage to get through and several challenges that cannot be ignored.
‘Reassigning’ these contracts to other providers was a big call and the new providers will have to deliver. It just seems odd that there will now be a separation between Family Start providers and some Whanau Ora providers when there is a natural fit for both initiatives to work in conjunction with one-another.
This move echos National’s ‘hat-trick’ of promoting competition in the marketplace of social service providers.
No one will really benefit least of all vulnerable whanau.
