The place for children's centres for New Zealand children

This paper examines the experience of poverty and child maltreatment among New Zealand's children as compared with international statistics. New Zealand was a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1993, yet indicators suggest that implementation of the Articles of the Convention is limited. In the league of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries it ranks 23rd out of 26 for child poverty and 24th out of 27 for the child maltreatment death rate. A case will be made for coordination of existing and new services for children and families through a dedicated children's centre, modelled on the United Kingdom's Sure Start and Children's Centre program that was modelled in part on the Head Start program of the United States. The paper reports on Wellsford, a rural community north of Auckland, which has embraced the children's centre concept and is investigating ways to obtain funding to implement the idea.