KEY POINTS:
A long-serving teacher is appalled that parents are not being held to account for neglecting their children while charity groups step in to clothe and feed them.
Red Cross and Kids Can are among charity organisations that provide food and clothing to poor children at some schools.
But semi-retired Napier teacher Vera Glover, who has 35 years' experience in education, said although children's immediate needs of hunger and warmth were met by such gifts, parents could then stand back and provide less for their families.
"Well-meaning charities and their sympathetic supporters setting up food banks, providing breakfasts at school, buying raincoats and shoes are removing parental responsibility and encouraging non-caring parents to provide even less," Mrs Glover said.
"When children come to school without adequate clothing or are obviously hungry that is when the families should be dealt with for not providing the necessities of life."
She believed intervention should take place long before charges of neglect and cruelty reached court.
"It is not difficult for teachers, school counsellors and social and health workers to identify families in need of basic organisational skills. Court orders could be used to require recalcitrant parents or caregivers to sit down with appropriate advisers to work out how to clothe and feed children with the income available."
"The problem is mishandling of the family income and wasting money on non-essentials such as excessive drinking, gambling, smoking and using drugs.
"With full employment most parents and older children in families have work.
"Where the bread-winner is on a benefit there is sufficient Government financial input for children to be property feed and clothed," Mrs Glover said.
If no attempt was made by parents to improve the condition of the children then the courts or social welfare agencies could take firmer action.
"I'm not saying that providing the necessities of life by good people is inherently bad ... but these gifts do not bring about change.
"It's a change of attitude on the part of parents and caregivers which brings about self- respect. That is absolutely essential for an upturn in the health and safety of a proportion of our population," Mrs Glover said.
- Hawke's Bay Today
