Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Women's Refuge appeal focuses on child victims of violence

Hawkes Bay Today
29 Jun, 2017 06:00 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Hastings Women's Refuge manager Julie Hart says the refuge is always busy. Photo/File

Hastings Women's Refuge manager Julie Hart says the refuge is always busy. Photo/File

Helping children in Aotearoa lead lives free from violence is the catch-cry of this year's annual Women's Refuge appeal, which starts on Monday.

The nationwide campaign is targeted at raising funds to go towards meeting the costs for services that the refuge provides for children across the country.

Figures show that just less thanhalf of the more than 40,000 women and children referred to Women's Refuge last year were children.

Women's Refuge Chief Executive Dr Ang Jury said: "We know that the impact of exposure to family violence is devastating for children, with some kids saying that witnessing family violence is more distressing than being the direct victims of violence by adults.

"Living with violence creates a sense of constant anxiety and stress, and this stress can damage if it's too much or lasts too long. When these tiny minds are exposed to severe, frequent, or ongoing stressful situations it can lead to an over-sensitive stress response.

"We can help them heal from this by providing one-on-one advocacy, programmes and workshops, groups - channels where kids can talk about their experiences in a safe and healing space," Dr Jury said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Recent refuge statistics indicate that the demand for refuge services for children will continue to increase over the next four to five years, requiringmore child advocates and more money to help fund the critical work they do to reduce the trauma of children's experiences and break the cycle of violence.

Hastings Women's Refuge manager Julie Hart said that, unfortunately, it was constantly busy. "We don't believe the domestic violence rate is increasing but there is evidence that people asking for help has. It is great that people feel free to come to us for help.

"Now we've also got employers, family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues calling on behalf of someone else," Ms Hart said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

While Women's Refuge has government contracts with Ministry of Justice and Child Youth and Family to provide children's programmes, the organisation is largely unfunded for the one-on-one specialised work they do with children which is mostly absorbed in to other streams of income or shouldered by the refuges themselves.

"Trained child advocates and child-focused services are critical to addressing family violence. Lack of funding for these services for children means that many refuges are unable to retain trained and skilled child advocates, or that the child advocate role is amalgamated into another existing role. Essentially our refuges have to choose between being able to offer appropriate services for tamariki and paying the power bill," Dr Jury said.

She said they needed the help of the New Zealand public to donate to the annual appeal in order to do their work.

"The kids we work with tell us that they just want to be listened to, have their opinions, thoughts and ideas taken seriously, and be told what is going on. We need to be listening to, and supporting, children who experience family violence in the ways that they need."

The 2017 annual appeal will run for four weeks and donations can be made via the website www.womensrefuge.org.nz, or by looking out for Women's Refuge Street collectors.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Woman tied to a pole and gagged during 100 assaults from partner

Premium
Hawkes Bay Today

'Bringing the community together': Young new owner's plans for Hastings cinema

Hawkes Bay Today

Hastings drinking water and waste water upgrades continue


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Woman tied to a pole and gagged during 100 assaults from partner
Hawkes Bay Today

Woman tied to a pole and gagged during 100 assaults from partner

Court of Appeal upholds jail term of three years and two months.

14 Jul 05:00 AM
Premium
Premium
'Bringing the community together': Young new owner's plans for Hastings cinema
Hawkes Bay Today

'Bringing the community together': Young new owner's plans for Hastings cinema

14 Jul 04:29 AM
Hastings drinking water and waste water upgrades continue
Hawkes Bay Today

Hastings drinking water and waste water upgrades continue

13 Jul 10:13 PM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP