Rotorua health camp to undergo restructuring

Rotorua's troubled Princess of Wales Health Camp and School is to undergo a major restructure and name change after the school closes in April.

The changes will see the camp and school coming under single management with a more community-based intervention focus.

The facility will become known as the Princess of Wales Health and Education Camp.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard announced last December that he was closing the facility's school, Te Kura Hauora, in early April at the end of the first term of the school year.

His decision followed increasing friction between school and camp staff and difficulties with the school's governance after the Board of Trustees was sacked in 1999.

The structures of both the camp and school are now being revised, according to the school's interim commissioner Judy Keaney.

Mrs Keaney told The Daily Post this work was being done by a regional manager, Dr Fiona Inkpen, appointed after the Ministry of Education contracted out the education services at the camp to the New Zealand Child Youth and Family Foundation.

The foundation would take over the running of the school.

Curriculum and teaching matters would still be monitored by the Ministry of Education under the terms of the contract.

Dr Inkpen's had obtained input from acting principal of the school Jo Lyford and camp staff and the new structure would come into force at the beginning of term two, on April 23, Mrs Keaney said.

The changes would be positive and a new structure was necessary to improve service to the children, said Mrs Keaney.

"Now both camp and school will be under the one management, and that was part of the problem before.

"There will be a new focus there with more community involvement and staff going out of the health camp and working with families in their own environment and community."

Members of the public and staff had previously criticised the camp for attempting to help children while they were staying there and then sending them back home where their problems had arisen, with no follow up care.

Mrs Keaney said working with the community to help children meant the camp was not so isolated and there would be more of an intervention focus.

Mrs Keaney, whose position will no longer be required, said the Rotorua camp was a test case. If, after
two years, it was working well, other camps in New
Zealand might also take on the new structure.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)