Services:

• Enliven
• Family Works
• Real People
• Cranford Hospice

Family Works HB – A Social Service that is Keeping Kids in Education.

 77% of Nikau Centre students returned to mainstream school
 75% of Family Works families reduced risks in their situation
 Preschool children supported by Family Works do well at school

Help Us to Help More Children Succeed
What happens in families affects what happens in school. Family Works, a Presbyterian Support initiative, supports kids to stay engaged in education by working with families and with schools. We do this through three programmes: the Nikau Centre at a Napier school, Social Workers in Flaxmere and Camberley schools and the Flaxmere HIPPY programme for parents and pre-schoolers.

These three services need $250,000 in donations each year.

The Nikau Centre supports highly disruptive intermediate aged students to reconnect with mainstream schools. “All of the kids we work with live in very difficult circumstances. They have been or are on the verge of being expelled, many for violence and all for significant truanting. Over five years 77% of them have returned successfully to mainstream schooling. The Nikau Centre has been praised by local and national police, schools and social agencies for giving the students a second chance at education and for reducing local crime” says Shaun Robinson CEO of Presbyterian Support.

This success comes from a multi-pronged approach; working with the students intensively in a specialist classroom environment, working with the school they will return to, to rebuild relationships and change the way the child is viewed and working with the family to address social issues such as housing and violence and ensure parents support their child’s education.

“It is the integration of the social and education support that works, yet it is often very hard to get the education and social agencies of government to work together. The Nikau Centre social work is still funded through charity despite its success rate and both the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Social Development thinking it’s a good idea” says Mr Robinson.

“For a $6,000 social work investment in each Nikau child we save the community huge dollars in social costs (i.e it costs $90,000 for a year of imprisonment) and human suffering. The logic of this preventive approach is easy to understand.”

“Our experience is that most children want to learn and enjoy school if they are supported at home and in the classroom in the right way. We also know this from other Family Works programmes Social Workers in Schools and our combined early childhood education and parenting work called HIPPY.”

Family Works have social workers based in the Flaxmere primary schools and the Camberley school in Hastings. Family Works Manager Pam McCann says, “We know from research that what happens in a child’s home environment does affect their school life and their achievements. Our job is to support families to understand this and to put their children’s needs first. 75% of the families we work with at Family Works reduce the risks in the lives of their children. In supporting kids and their families the educational outcomes are improved.”

Family Works also run the HIPPY programme in Flaxmere where 55 families a year are supported to prepare their preschoolers for school. The HIPPY programme helps parents create experiences for their children that lay the foundation for success in school and later life. “Children who have been through the HIPPY programme do well at school right from the start. They score better at literacy, numeracy and understanding appropriate behaviour compared to their peers. HIPPY children retain their competency in reading and numeracy skills as they progress through school.”

“What we do works” says Pam McCann. “We bring hope to kids, hope to families and hope to the community. Unfortunately we are always limited by lack of money. We rely on the community’s generosity to keep going. The more you give to Family Works HB the more we can give back in the form of happy, safe kids who are engaged at school”.

Family Works HB is a prevention focused family social work service run by Presbyterian Support East Coast.