Ben Awa remembers the moment he made the decision: "I didn't like smacking my little boy, I felt like I was hurting myself. I said 'this is not going to happen any more'."
"I was raising him like my parents had raised me," he says. "Mum and dad were great parents but their upbringing was ruthless and in turn I was disciplined hard because that's what they knew."
Something in him snapped and his vow to stop smacking - made 16 years ago - led him along a path where today, as leader of Plunket's Maori/Pacific Father's Group, he runs conscious parenting sessions in Wellington for at risk fathers.
Plunket wants to extend the initiative to other parts of the country and is aiming to use some of the money raised in its ongoing '1000 Days to Raise a Bundle' campaign to do so. Launched last year, the fundraiser seeks $4 million to help Plunket fund its full array of community services.
Although Awa changed his parenting style all those years ago, it wasn't until he literally had a second chance at fatherhood he decided to put his experience to use in helping other fathers.
He explains: "My son is now 25 and he was about nine when I decided to stop smacking. Five years ago my second son was born and I realised how differently I was bringing him up.
"In fact my older children told me they thought I was a better father than I had been with them."
Awa says at the time he was raising his older children he was working long hours and was less financially stable - factors which led to considerable stress in his home.
Just 20 when his first son was born, Awa initially worked as a cleaner at night to supplement the income from his day job. He later took on a butchers' apprenticeship working 12-hour days between 2am and 2pm, while his partner and the mother of his two first-born also worked fulltime.
"Even when I was with the kids," he says, "I was stuffed from working so hard. By the time my second son came along I had learnt what I did right, what I did wrong so I guess it was the little guy who pushed me into what I'm doing now."
Successfully applying for the Plunket Parenting Facilitator job at Rimutaka Prison, Awa drew on some of what he had learnt from personal experience in delivering the Plunket programme.
Awa says conscious parenting is as much about fathers as children. The sessions aim to help dads understand how their upbringing shapes them as fathers and how the way they live impacts on their kids. It also aims to give them tools to help deal with the stresses parenting can bring.
"Conscious parenting really is about quality of time rather than quantity and it can be as small a change as taking 10 minutes and being fully with your child for that time."
Most of the men he works with are separated and have children with more than one partner; the 10 at Rimutaka Prison have 44 children between them (on another course he ran 10 fathers had 63 children).
Awa also runs a community project at Wainuiomata. Of the 11 men, four are now training to become facilitators themselves. One of them, Tepa Le'afa, says the course has been a "godsend".
"Some of the things I did with my kids bring tears to my eyes when I think about it now," he says. "I never hit them (he has four boys aged between 10 and four and a 13-year-old step-daughter) but I was impatient and used to lose my rag a lot. I didn't talk to them, I talked at them; I would tell them 'don't do that' or 'stop that'.
"It was all negative and I was losing their trust because they couldn't talk to me. I didn't think of it as abuse but it was frightening for them and I used to say if they're not being hit they shouldn't be crying."
Le'afa believes it is important to focus on helping men become better fathers because "we mess up".
Karen Magrath, Plunket National Advisor Well Child and Parenting, says while it is important to realise there is no such thing as a perfect parent, it is never too late to take steps to change.
Research published by a New Zealand organisation, Great Fathers, suggests it is not uncommon for men to suffer post-natal depression.
"Having a new baby is a huge change and challenge for any father and it can be particularly difficult to balance the demands of work and fatherhood," it says.
Chief executive Amanda Malu says Plunket receives some funding for its community services -which include postnatal support, injury prevention, toy libraries, playgroups and early childhood services - from government and non-government sources, but it needs to fundraise to provide additional services like conscious parenting.
"The '1000 Days to Raise a Bundle' campaign supports our vision that in the first 1000 days of a child's life we make a difference of a lifetime," she says.
You can make the difference of a lifetime for families and their babies in New Zealand by donating to Plunket or signing up to become a fundraiser at www.raiseabundle.co.nz