Interview with the Hon. Mr King, Minister of Social Welfare

The Labour Party 1972 Election Manifesto states on p9: All children should have the opportunity for preschool education... Development will be encouraged in full cooperation with voluntary organisations."

The manifesto gives details of this encouragement: "A Labour Government ...will make available: Grants in aid to community agencies which will be encouraged to maintain their independence and voluntary character."

The results of what the manifesto calls: "the widest possible consultation, investigation and intensive study" ought to be better known to some of the Labour Party's own ministers. After an interview between Mr King and members of the Te-Kainga committee, the promises in the manifesto sound ironical

No Proper Channel

It is apparently of the utmost importance to be constructive. The fact that failing to give any help is going to mean the end of Te Kainga does not appear to have struck the minister as being destructive.

Community a Dirty Word

Suppose all these difficulties could be overcome and Mr King could be convinced that helping Te Kainga won't endanger the welfare of the nation, there remains an irresistible objection : Te Kainga is too small! It was only formed by a group of parents and, after all, only arose to meet and fill a need! Te Kainga is not a national body (apparently a capital sin) and if Mr King has his way, is not likely to expand since he is in effect very efficiently closing it down. Community has suddenly, become a dirty word, to be pronounced with careful scorn and vocal inverted commas. Let us rather talk about churches, private enterprises, profit making...

However, some commission is searching at present it's way in the maze of child welfare. Mr King's good heart goes, he says, with great concern at the some 8,000 children whose care is his indirect responsbility. Rest easier, Honourable King, your burden has been lightened of 10 or so children, TeKainga is going to be out in a few weeks. Can we suggest to him other centres he could give a similar kind of help to? Such tender concern surely will not stop at TeKainga, there must be other "small, community run, voluntary, free" child-care centres requiring the same assistance who, poor, innocent, thought that to provide a badly needed community service was to be constructive, who had dreams of having not one, but several of those centres involving parents, school children, students etc., who thought that Labour might mean a change from National... for all such great illusions one cure exists, it is infallible, it is an interview with Mr King.

What is Te Kainga?

Te Kainga opened as a child-care centre at 39 Arthur Street towards the end of 1971. The original committee overcame many obstacles in obtaining a house at a low rental from the City Council, in getting it done up to the standard required by the authorities and in manning the centre with voluntary helpers.

Basically, Te Kainga is a group of people, some of whom need care for their own children, and some of whom are simply interested and concerned in child-care. Membership in the society is voluntary, and open to anyone who subscribes to its aims and objects, as set out, in the constitution. In practical terms, this means that the parents of the children who are looked after at the centre, the supervisors, and a wide variety of voluntary helpers, all work together for the smooth running and overall success of the nursery.

This co-operative basis on which TeKainga is run is one of its most important features. It is a project which was brought about by community effort, in response to community need, and which fulfills several functions besides the actual care of children. Many of our helpers are mothers with one or two children who welcome the opportunity to let them socialise with a larger group. Others are high-school, university, and training-college students, who enjoy the contact with small children, and gain some practical insight for their studies. We were asked by the former Child-Welfare Department to offer company, reassurance, and practical experience to unmarried, pregnant girls who found themselves in an isolated situation once they had left work. We have also been asked to allow students of child development from the Polytechnic nursing course to do observation work at Te Kainga. Finally, we find that parental involvement in the running of the nursery gives great satisfaction to both the parents, who can see for themselves how their child is getting on, and to the child, who sees his parents as belonging to the nursery situation, and comes to regard it virtually as a second home.

A second important feature of Te Kainga is that it is free. This means that we can pursue a policy of helping those with financial problems, such as solo parents and others. Most parents do, in fact contribute as much as they are able. Until this year we have managed an income consisting solely of donations.

The free and cooperative basis of TeKainga has encouraged a multiracial, multicultural membership from the beginning. We feel that this provides a very fruitful environment for a number of children from a variety of income groups and backgrounds.

Unlike many child-care centres in the Wellington area, Te Kainga takes children of any age from 0 to 5, and has also catered for school-age children after school. Commercially run centres will seldom take children under two years of age which frequently results in the splitting of families.

We have a current waiting list of 25, these being the most urgent gases. We have many referrals from other centres of children under two, and turn away two or three people each week who come hoping for care for their children. Last year we had at least 200 requests for places, most of which we could not fulfill. We believe that government assistance for our centre and others similar will encourage the development of a high standard of child-care. If no assistance is forthcoming, the vacuum will be filled by commercial enterprise, with profit as the main motive.

Up until now, our material assistance has come from the Wellington City Corporation, from Trade Unions, parents, and benevolent individuals. However, Te Kainga needs a sum of $3,210 to pay the supervisors' salaries for the remainder of 1973.

Our current financial situation is such that we can afford to pay salaries for only two more weeks. Unless we receive prompt financial assistance from some quarter we shall be forced to dismiss the supervisors and close down the child-care centre.

Child Care in N.Z.

Preschool facilities for children in New Zealand fall into two broad categories. First, there are Preschool centres, including free kindergartens, federated play centres, and other play centres and kindergartens. Then there are Day-care centres, including day nurseries (about 40% of which are situated in private homes, where a housewife offers day care to children), day and residential nurseries, university and training college nurseries, and factory nurseries.

In June 1970, there were 1,027 preschool centres in New Zealand, and 120 day-care centres. While there are a relatively large number of play centres and kindergartens, these presuppose a family situation where there are two parents, and the mother is at home during the day. These organisations consider themselves to have a primarily educational function, and do not in any way make provision for children of a working solo parent, or of two parents who both work. These children are thus limited to using day care centres where they are available, and making other arrangements where they are not. In June 1970, there were just over 2,000 places in registered day care centres, and an estimated 28,000—34,000 pre-school children of married women — more still if the children of working solo parents are included.

What happens to the remaining 26,000— 32,000 children, whose mothers work, but who are not in registered day care? A survey carried out by the Society for Research on Women indicates that relatives, friends and neighbours are chiefly responsible for looking after these children. Such arrangements are often makeshift and far from satisfactory, a strain on the families involved, and have adverse effects of the security and development of the children.

In 1964, the New Zealand Association of Child Care Centres was established. One of the main tasks of the association has been to establish a recognised training course for the supervisors of day care centres. While membership of the association is voluntary, quite a large proportion of existing centres do belong, and share a basic concern for the social, emotional and intellectual needs of children, as well as meeting the physical requirements which are the chief official concern.

Regulations covering day care centres do require that the programmes for children reach a certain standard in terms of child development, "in order that the educational and social development obtained in pre-school centres by other children is not altogether denied to the children of working mothers". However, there is an obvious anomaly in the situation where the children of well-off parents with a stable family situation have free government assisted preschool education made readily available to them, while the children whose parents work through choice or necessity, and who are likely to be less privileged anyway, are denied any government assistance whatsoever, and have an educational programme dependent entirely on the ability or whim of the supervisor. (While a training course exists it is not compulsory; a centre with a trained supervisor, a qualified teacher, or a registered nurse gets an 'A' licence; a centre whose supervisor is simply a 'suitable' person gets a 'B' licence.)

Sonja Davies, President of the New Zealand Association of Child Care Centres, said in her annual report: "Just as in our society it is unusual for children to suffer starvation or physical deprivation, but only too common for them to live in surroundings that are intellectually or emotionally deficient, so too, it is unusual today to find child care centres, that do not conform to the physical requirements of the regulations, but still too possible to find some where children are not offered the variety of experience necessary for their full development.

So long as it is possible for people with no qualifications whatsoever to open centres— and for no real effort to be made by them to become qualified, then just so long we shall not get child care in proper perspective.'

*Based on The Working Mother and Child-Care, Labour and Employment Gazette, Vol. XXI, No.3 August 1971