Evaluation of Family Help Trust - New Zealand Family Violence ...

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5.4 Comments on Selected Areas of Psychosocial FunctioningTo place the findings of the present evaluation of Family Help Trust in context,section 5.4 will examine the implications of the present findings by examiningthe available literature and presenting case vignettes that illustrate certainchanges in individual family functioning. These vignettes support thequantitative results presented so far in this analysis and serve as a reminderof the actual issues dealt with by home visitation services working with highriskfamilies.5.4.1 Child AbuseFindings from Elmira indicate that children in the home visitation service areless likely to be abused or neglected than a control group during the first twoyears of the children’s lives (Olds et al., 1986). While some researcherssuggest that measures of referrals to organisations such as CYFS do notprovide an accurate picture of the true level of abuse, given that not all childabuse is reported, the number of referrals to child protection agencies are thefigures that key stakeholders (such as government funders and politicians) aremost interested in. Chaffin (2005) suggests that measures such as referralsto child protection agencies are the key outcome for any service claiming tobe engaged in child abuse prevention.“Nonetheless, if the programs advertise themselves as child abuseprevention, and are funded with child abuse prevention monies, thenthat is how they should be evaluated.” (page 244).Chaffin further questions the validity of proxy measures of maltreatment (e.g.,injury, hospitalisation for injury or ingestion of inappropriate materials, orpsychometric scales of attitudes to child punishment). Information on CYFSreferrals is therefore of high priority in the present study. The statisticallysignificant decrease in CYFS concern about children over the first twelvemonths is an important finding. Many services do not achieve positiveoutcomes in preventing child abuse (Chaffin, 2005), especially in a high-riskcohort that includes those with previous child protection agency contacts (e.g.80
MacMillan et al., 2005). A recent report suggests that New Zealand, at sevendeaths per thousand births, has the second highest child mortality rate in thedeveloped world (Commonwealth Fund; 2006) .In order to provide some insight into the life circumstances of MOB at FamilyHelp Trust, a brief summary of four case vignettes is provided in Chapter 4.2.2(pages 64-65).5.4.2 Basic Needs of ChildOver the first twelve months of Family Help Trust, there were statisticallysignificant improvements in the percentage of MOB reporting positiveparenting behaviours (such as provision of healthy food, child(ren)’s personalhygiene and a regular bedtime routine. Table 4.1 (page 60) shows a cleartrend for rates of positive parenting behaviours to improve by twelve months.Previous reports have found similar changes in child rearing practices(Fergusson et al., 1999), and Chaffin (2005) has suggested that most homevisitation services are more accurately characterized as maternal and childhealth enhancement programmes. Certainly a main focus of the Early Startservice (Fergusson, Horwood et al., 2005) is child health.A further issue that this evaluation has not been able to assess is the extentthat medical help has been offered to target children as some of thisinformation is presently not available for analysis. This is unfortunate, giventhe findings of Fergusson et al. (1999) whose analysis “suggests that a clearbenefit of the programme is likely to be in the area of ensuring high levels ofmedical contact surveillance and care of children. This benefit was particularlyclear in the area of immunisation and well child checks with Early Startchildren being almost invariably up-to-date with these provisions.” (page 6).The present evaluation also found that the Family Help Trust target childrenwere up to date with immunisations. However, information on number ofchild-related contacts with family doctor, hospital attendances foraccidents/injuries and accidental poisoning, and enrolment with preschool81
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"Programs may need to reconsider 'u
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ForewordIt gives me pleasure to pro
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Table of ContentsForeword..........
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AcknowledgementsMany people and org
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Executive SummaryFamily Help Trust
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The wellbeing of children matters t
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(Bilukha et al., 2005). “The Task
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suggests that the most effective pa
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eflected in fewer subsequent pregna
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experiences by saying: “One of th
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In summary, despite increased inter
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enefits in the areas of maternal he
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families that consented have been g
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In 1995, Family Help Trust, as part
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families have multiple risk factors
Page 38 and 39: iii)Outcome evaluation, discussed b
Page 40 and 41: their resources and exploit any eva
Page 42 and 43: In summary, an evaluation of the ef
Page 44 and 45: two data collection periods. In all
Page 46 and 47: Type I errorWith such a large numbe
Page 48 and 49: Along with the problem of low numbe
Page 50 and 51: iii)‘social desirability’ and
Page 52 and 53: to ensure the results of this evalu
Page 54 and 55: history of offending. An outline of
Page 56 and 57: Examination of Table 3.2 shows that
Page 58 and 59: Table 3.4 shows that the majority o
Page 60 and 61: From Table 3.6, it is apparent that
Page 62 and 63: partners, should this variable be o
Page 64 and 65: An examination of Table 3.10 indica
Page 66 and 67: CHAPTER 4OUTCOMES AT TWELVE MONTHSW
Page 68 and 69: • “do you have a washing machin
Page 70 and 71: • In the past six months, has you
Page 72 and 73: aseline had CYFS involvement at twe
Page 74 and 75: at least to some extent, due to inp
Page 76 and 77: From Table 4.4 it can be seen that
Page 78 and 79: From Table 4.6 it can be seen that
Page 80 and 81: target families may be due to a rep
Page 82 and 83: 4.3 SummaryChapter 4 has provided a
Page 84 and 85: CHAPTER 5DISCUSSIONThe purpose of t
Page 86 and 87: services, Table 5.1 shows a compari
Page 90 and 91: dental services are currently not a
Page 92 and 93: Case 2Referral from obstetric socia
Page 94 and 95: Perry (2004) emphasised that a key
Page 96 and 97: eported cigarette smoking by others
Page 98 and 99: ecause a) mothers would be busy wit
Page 100 and 101: ehaviours such as criminality and s
Page 102: Appendix I Risk Factors for Referra
Page 106 and 107: Chaffin, M. (2004). Is it time to r
Page 108 and 109: Evaluation Unit Ministry of Social
Page 110 and 111: Ministry of Health. (1994). Report
Page 112: Shirley, I., V., Adair, & Anderson,
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