Children endure pain alone when the cash runs out

Jill Proudfoot's child crisis team had to suspend work last year when funding ran out. Picture / Greg Bowker

"I'm mean not helping Mummy," said a little girl when a children's advocate from Preventing Violence in the Home came to visit.

"I'm too scared to help Mummy when Daddy's hitting her. I'm mean not helping."

Jill Proudfoot, the advocate who made the visit, says one of her first priorities when she visits children who have seen parental violence is to relieve the kids of that sense that they are responsible for it.

She gives children a chance - often the first chance they've had - to talk to someone about their own feelings about it.

"They will tell me, 'My tummy really hurts', 'I was so frightened that I was shaking', or 'I could feel my heart beating faster'."

Then she helps the family draw up a plan for the children when violence erupts - to go to their room and shut the door or, perhaps on a pre-arranged signal from Mum, to call a neighbour or dial 111.

The "child crisis team" at Auckland's Preventing Violence in the Home visited 86 families in the past year, thanks to charities such as the ASB Community Trust.

But thousands more families missed out. In Auckland, police were called to 4000 domestic violence incidents in the past year. In Manukau, the figure is 8000, in Waitakere 6000.

Although Ms Proudfoot manages Preventing Violence's paid advocate team for women who are the victims of violence, her work with children is done as an after-hours contractor because the funding is uncertain.

"Last year we had months when we didn't do child crisis team work at all because the money ran out," she said.

"So it's not secure funding. That makes us feel that this is something that is not really valued by society."

The child crisis team was set up three years ago, based on similar teams in the United States where research has found that the fear induced by parental violence, even before a child is born, can affect brain development.

"What happens when children are traumatised is that they become much less likeable," Ms Proudfoot said.

"If a child has been living with a mother in constant fear, they have her fear hormones. They are more likely to be stressed-out babies who cry a lot, so you don't get those normal rewards of parenthood such as the baby looking at you and smiling.

"So you get to like the baby less and less. So by the time they are doing the terrible-two tantrums, they are much easier to smack because they are not very likeable. And when they go to school, they haven't learned the stuff kiddies learn as preschoolers such as numbers and colours, because their brain has been occupied by fear."

The team visits families only if there is enough money for two or three follow-up visits.

As well as working with children, the advocates teach the parents techniques to soothe them.

"It may mean treating the children as a couple of years younger than they really are for a while - wrapping and holding them, holding them with their head against your heart so they can feel your heartbeat, playing music with 60 beats a minute, and particularly rocking," Ms Proudfoot said.

The team costs $160,000 a year and will be a major beneficiary of the "Get Auckland Organised" garage sale in November.