Editorial: Urgency needed to help child

Hora Hora primary school principal Pat Newman has a child at his school with some behavioural issues that need specialist help.

Four months down the track from logging this student on the right person's radar, nothing has happened.

This is obviously a kid who has some special, quite specific needs.

He is prone to violent behaviour, stemming from who knows what.

So the school has stepped in to help this child identify some of the causative factors for his behaviour. Nothing happens for a kid that is different without constant advocating - from a parent or teacher.

It can be an extraordinarily frustrating experience trying to achieve a decent outcome for your child within the education and health system.

It can also be extraordinarily rewarding - there are fantastic people working within our health and education sectors, but they are often bogged down, knee-deep in murky bureaucracy where accountability, clarity and common sense can be difficult to find.

When a school such as Hora Hora steps in to advocate for a child, after identifying the need for some specialist help, something needs to happen.

Four months with no action is unacceptable.

This child is 6 years old.

He is prone to violent behaviour.

Someone other than a teacher, a parent, a grandmother or father or school principal - needs to sit down with this child and work out why he is violent.

He is a child. He is unlikely to be railing against this country's political system.

In that regard, the child is lucky to have a principal well versed in such matters, who pressed the right buttons to get action for this student.

They say it takes a village to raise a child.

It would be churlish to say that the village that raises our special kids is populated by idiots.

But it does seem no one is home.

Out of everyone - the teachers, the child's family, the principals, fellow pupils - it is the 6-year-old who deserves better.