Hon Tariana Turia
Associate Minister for Social Development

Media Statement 7 June 2012

Supporting safe environments for children

New funding announced in the 2012 Budget, to provide $3 million each year to help create safe and nurturing environments for children, was launched today by Associate Social Development Minister Tariana Turia in Hastings.

Mrs Turia said, “Te Punanga Haumaru aims to assist whānau and communities to create safe environments”.

“Providing safe and nurturing environments from an early age will support children to develop skills and build healthy relationships. It is about ensuring that our tamariki have the best start in life and are provided with positive supports”.

We know that bullying behaviour and aggression can have a serious impact on brain development and learning. It can also impact later in life through learning and behavioural problems, mental health issues and drug and alcohol issues”.

“If children grow up in environments where aggression and bullying is accepted, they have less chance of having positive relationships with their own partners or children. This funding will support communities to create a safe and nurturing environment for all whānau members, especially children”.

More information about the Te Punanga Haumaru Fund is available on www.familyservices.govt.nz

Te Punanga Haumaru - The safe refuge in troubled times
Questions and Answers
1. What is Te Punanga Haumaru?
Te Punanga Haumaru provides annual funding of $3 million which will support the creation of whanau-centred solutions to create safe and nurturing environments for children and young people; and to address the causes of bullying.
2. Why has Te Punanga Haumaru been launched?
Research has found that over two-thirds of young people have reported being involved in bullying. Although most bullying behaviour is reported at school, it also happens in the home and in communities. Bullying is also influenced by age, parenting styles, peer pressure and popular culture. Te Punanga Haumaru will address the wider factors that influence behaviour and will complement existing programmes in schools
3. What is bullying
Bullying is deliberate harmful behaviour towards other people which is repeated over time. There is a power imbalance between those who exhibit bullying behaviour and those who are bullied. There are four types of bullying – verbal, physical, social/relational/direct and cyber.
Bullying doesn’t just involve individuals. It involves those being bullied, peers, adults, parents, school and home environments, and societal influences.
4. Why is there concern about bullying – isn’t it just part of growing up?
Bullying is not new, but we now understand more about its impact. Young people who experience bullying or exhibit bullying behaviour are more likely to avoid going to school, and have poorer long term health and educational outcomes.
5. Is it possible to completely stop bullying?
Bullying can in part be reduced by school programmes that promote a safe school environment and focus on social and emotional learning. However, schools can not do this work alone. Programmes are more effective if the wider community is involved. Hearing consistent messages from the different adults in their lives can reinforce the message for children that bullying is unacceptable.
It is also important that whanau know how to recognise signs of bullying and how to support their young people.
6. What sort of projects will be funded?
Priority will be given to projects:
 that demonstrate how community and whanau will work together to address local issues
 that have clear goals to support community-wide change
 that demonstrate how the project will achieve the desired outcomes
 that are supported by a range of people within the community including community groups, sport clubs, schools, local government, local champions as well as children and young people
7. How much funding is available?
The Government is investing $3 million per annum to support this Fund.
8. How do you apply for the Fund?
Further details of the fund will be advertised on the Family and Community Services website from the first week of August.
9. Aren’t there already lots of programmes dealing with bullying?
While there are a number of programmes to address bullying, most are school based. However, bullying is not limited to schools alone.
Families and communities play an equally important role in promoting positive social behaviour. Children learn about respectful relationships from their own families, and from the environments in which they live. Whether that environment is in school, in the local mall, on the playing field, in church or at home using social media. It is the family and community elements that we wish to develop through this fund.

BUDGET 2012 FACT SHEET
Promoting Positive Behaviour

Government is investing $12 million over four years in services that aim to create safe and nurturing environments for children.

The fund will support whānau to address their children’s anti-social behaviours in the places children and young people are, including early childhood, primary and secondary schools.

Early intervention can help these children develop skills for getting along with others in age-appropriate ways. The aim is to stop bullying and other anti-social behaviour before it becomes an entrenched way of interacting with others.

The fund will provide whānau with access to information and services that can help them care for children that have experienced humiliation, violence or abuse. Services will also help children understand the impact that bullying, violence and abuse has on others and encourage them to act in a way that prevents such behaviour from occurring again.

A tender process will be held to select providers to deliver the programme.