Waitemata leads way in family violence fight

The Waitemata DHB is dedicated to stamping out family violence within its communities. Photo / Thinkstock

Waitemata District Health Board is leading the way in the fight against family violence.

The board has come out on top of all 20 district health boards in the country within the Government's Violence Intervention Programme in hospitals.

The Child Abuse and Neglect Programmes puts an alert system in place where children at risk of abuse or neglect are carefully monitored.

In the same way, hospitals monitor partner violence screening as part of the Partner Abuse Programmes.

Statistics from this year's Hospital Responsiveness to Family Violence survey, carried out by the Ministry of Health, showed Waitemata DHB achieved the highest scores in the implementation of the programmes.

It scored 96 per cent for its Child Abuse programmes and 96 per cent in its Partner Abuse programmes.

The average score among all district health boards was 86 per cent and 87 per cent, respectively. The Government's target for each category is 70 per cent.

Other district health boards which scored highly include the Hawkes Bay, Auckland, Southland, Canterbury and Wairarapa.

Waitemata district health board chief executive Dale Bramley said the results were a reflection of the board's dedication to stamping out family violence within its communities.

"We are very proud of this achievement, as it underscores our commitment to responding to family violence and providing intervention and support across our communities," he said.

Linda Harun, of Child, Women and Family and who works with Waitemata DHB, said early intervention services provided in hospitals was vital.

She said the success of the programmes was thanks to outside organisations working with hospitals, such as police and Child, Youth and Family.

She said: "A big part of the Waitemata DHB success is [due to] our many strong relationships with local government services and specialist family violence agencies."