Police are claiming a major turnaround in some of Hawke's Bay's serial domestic violence incidents in a project that has targeted 37 families with a combined history of 1092 "family harm" reports.
The deluge averaged almost 30 a family, or more than 10 per child across the 102 children in the families, but police 21 couples are now "violence-free", another 11 have seen a decrease in the level of violence, and there's been a 57 per cent in the number of callouts to the homes of "participants".
Among the byproducts is a near six-fold increase in employment statistics — from 8 per cent to 46 per cent, with another 8 per cent doing further training.
At the centre of the turnaround police say is Te Manu Tu Tuia, a "whanau-centric" family harm-reduction programme which started in Hawke's Bay in 2015.
One participant is quoted by police as saying: "I was in the Police car every week. It was constant. I would say I was quite aggressive but I haven't seen the Police for more than a year now".