Help for parents difficult to find says Families Commission

Emma Kirkland says a Plunket course helped her with 10-month-old Douglas. Picture / Greg Bowker

New mother Emma Kirkland found out about a parenting course that has changed her life "through luck rather than good management".

"I had lots of problems breastfeeding," she says. Her son Douglas is now 10 months.

"I was helped by the La Leche League and the Plunket family centre, but I didn't receive any help antenatally, so it was all a huge shock to me when I started breastfeeding and it was so hard."

After six months, she heard from friends that Plunket also ran parenting courses. She took an eight-week course called Your Growing Baby - and wished she had known about it months before.

"The majority of the mothers there had six to eight-week-old babies," she said.

"One of the important things for me is making connections with other young mums, being able to have adult interactions, and also the information is great in terms of learning about your developing baby - particularly breastfeeding and solids for infants."

A report by the new Families Commission, published yesterday, has found that other parents who have been on parenting courses have also found them useful - but hard to find.

"Through our Parents Centre we have all these fantastic courses, absolutely brilliant," an Auckland mother told the commission. "And hardly anyone in the community knows about them,".

But another mother said: "It is embarrassing to seek help. It is evidence that the family has a problem, and people don't want to admit to that."

The commission, created last year by a deal between Labour and United Future after the last election, says the 291 parents consulted for the report in focus groups felt a need to make parenting programmes available nationally.

"Feedback reinforced the view that most parents need parenting advice and that accessing such advice and education should be the norm," it says.

Chief Commissioner Rajen Prasad said the Labour Government agreed in principle before the election to make such programmes available universally.

"I think it's a priority," he said.

"My expectation is that the examination of that will begin to take place as soon as the Government is settled.

"We've had this interregnum, but now that, hopefully, we are reaching some conclusion we expect the development to proceed, and the end result should be programmes to begin to support parents in their parenting roles."

He said the Ministry of Social Development would lead policy development, and programmes would build on existing courses run by Plunket, Parents Centres and others.

"We will identify the characteristics of a successful programme and there will be a universal base programme benchmarked.

"I imagine it will be some kind of partnership with agencies like Plunket and the Pacific Foundation.

"In addition there will always be a need for specialised programmes if you happen to be bringing up a disabled child, or if you have three preschoolers, or if you have three teenagers.

"Those are the next tier of programmes that will be grafted on to the universal programme."

Plunket's parenting education adviser, Lynette Collis, said Plunket aimed to make its four parenting courses, aimed at parents of children aged from 0 to 3, available nationally by next June.

Its courses are free and are funded by its annual appeal and other fundraising.

The Families Commission report says the availability of courses is particularly "variable" for parents of children over six.

"It is clear that this is an area that could be bolstered."

The Families Commission found:

* Parenting courses are useful, but too little known.
* Some mothers are embarrassed to seek help.
* Parents want programmes to become 'the norm'.