Dannevirke domestic violence: Educating kids key to turning tide, constable says

Dayna Mercer (left) and Trudie Flynn from the Tararua White Ribbon Action Group with one of the remembrance stories and white ribbons. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

A group trying to break the cycle of domestic violence in Dannevirke is targeting youth and creating activities to spark awareness and conversations in the town’s schoolchildren.

The Tararua White Ribbon Action Group will this year work with the children of 15 schools in the Tararua district who have come on board with White Ribbon.

Constable Dayna Mercer, also chairwoman for the Tararua White Ribbon Action Group, said that Dannevirke has a significant intergenerational domestic violence problem.

In the last six months, there had been 352 reported family harm episodes in the Tararua region.

“You can’t fix generational harm in five minutes, it’s going to take us a long time to get to the bottom,” Mercer said.

“We need to feed the right information to the younger generation to stop what has been happening their whole lives from happening in their homes when they become adults,” she said.

In an attempt to create discussion among younger primary school-aged students, Mercer said she had painted 71 rocks black with a white ribbon for the White Ribbon Rock Hunt.

The hope is that by engaging children with the rock hunt and then rewarding them with packs of kid-friendly information about domestic violence (and the chance to win a UE Boom speaker), it will help raise awareness of the issue for them.

Mercer said it was important that the children could grow to understand what a safe home looks like, to break the pattern of domestic violence.

“The sad reality is that it is everywhere and that we want people to speak out, we want people to recognise the signs of domestic violence. We want parents to teach their children what love is, and show emotions,” she said.

Domestic violence could be anything from controlling behaviours over finances, communication, and contact with family members, and can take on less obvious forms such as isolation from friends, Mercer said.

“That isolation tends to be a very big problem because once a person becomes isolated, they have got nobody to go to for help and things become quite internalised inside the home.”

Mercer said a common pattern seen by police was that women tended to shut down and not want to talk, and would often minimise the behaviour of their aggressor.

“Some of those medical situations can be as small as a broken bone and can be as large as serious damage to their body that without medical intervention could kill them,” she said.

The group plans to have a Year 12 and Year 13 student join the group and help spread awareness about the issue within high schools next year.

WHERE TO GET HELP:

• Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor.
• Manline is a counselling and education service run by men, for men over the age of 13 - 06 358 1211
• Women’s Refuge - 0800 733 843
• The Depression Helpline - 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 (to talk to a trained counsellor about how you are feeling or to ask any questions).
• Youthline - 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat.
• Alcohol Drug Helpline (0800 787 797)

Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.