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Principals struggle to obtain help for children

<h3>This year&comma; TTPA carried out a survey of schools in the North and has released some independent analysis of the results&period;<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Principals in Te Tai Tokerau are still struggling to receive the necessary help needed to deal with the results of trauma and abuse of the kids in our schools&comma; yet this problem has been known for years&excl;” says Pat Newman President Te Tai Tokerau Principals Association&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It confirms the current situation&comma; what we in the north face on a daily basis&comma;” said Pat&period;  &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Whilst I must acknowledge the work by Minister Martin in attempting to cover some of these needs&comma; the reality is that the problem is so great that one can’t help feel finding this help is a bit like finding a pimple on an elephant’s bum…&period;&excl;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;What is worse&comma; is the lack of help&comma; specifically from some of the services provided by the DHB&period; It truly needs to look long and hard at why Principals have little confidence&comma; and why the high level of dissatisfaction&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;On the other hand Ministry and educationally based help&comma; scores far higher but is totally hampered by the size of the problem and he resources available”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The question really is&comma; will we still be talking about this huge problem in another ten years&comma; or will finally those with the power say enough is enough and provide the required resources for Te Tai Tokerau&quest;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<h2><strong>Excerpts from the report&colon;<&sol;strong><&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>The incidence of self-harm was concerning&period; While this category of severe&comma; problem behaviour was the second lowest reported&comma; more than a third of the responding principals &lpar;29&rpar;&comma; dealt with students with self- harm behaviours&period; This signifies considerable distress for the children involved&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>A significant number of principals &lpar;19&percnt;&rpar; believed that their health had been compromised by the stresses and battles they faced in this work&period; The level of distress was such that 7 &lpar;8&percnt;&rpar; principals felt a sense of dread in coming to work&period; By far the majority described their anger &lpar;64&percnt;&rpar; and frustration &lpar;52&percnt;&rpar; about the lack of resources for this work&period; Continually fighting to gain the services and resources &lpar;57&percnt;&rpar;&comma; while dealing daily with the struggles to manage their workload and daily firefighting behavioural issues as they occurred &lpar;61&percnt;&rpar;&comma; contributed to the stress some felt&period; Comments attached to this section noted that five principals experienced sleeplessness and resultant exhaustion and tiredness&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Specialist Child Health Services with conditions requiring physical health assessments and interventions received largely favourable ratings &lpar;70&percnt;&rpar;&period; The service was used in term one of 2019 by 40 schools with 28 rating the service as satisfactory&comma; good or very good&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In contrast&comma; ratings of Child and Adolescent Mental Health&colon; Te Roopu Kimiora achieved a favourable rating from 14 principals and a negative rating from 32&period; This corresponds to a 30&percnt; positive rating of satisfactory or good&comma; &lpar;none were rated very good&rpar;&period; The bureaucratic requirements for referrals&comma; followed by under-resourced&comma; unresponsive and untimely services accompanied by poor communication informed these negative perceptions<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The most commonly used service to assist teachers and children with severe&comma; problem behaviours was the Resource Teacher Learning and Behaviour &lpar;RTLB&rpar; service&period; It was also the most highly rated with 76&period;5&percnt; of schools giving a positive rating&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Survey One&colon; Severe Problem Behaviour in Te Tai Tokerau Schools&comma; Years 1- to 8&period;<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>Both high and low decile schools experienced incidences of severe&comma; problem behaviour&comma; but the frequency of these behaviours were higher in low decile schools<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Boys were more likely than girls to have severe problem behaviour by a ratio of 4&colon;1<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>The most common forms of severe problem behaviour involved student to student interactions such as swearing in &lpar;90&percnt;&rpar; of schools&semi; threats of physical violence &lpar;82&percnt;&rpar;&semi; acts of physical violence &lpar;76&percnt;&rpar;&semi; bullying &lpar;87&percnt;&rpar;&semi; stand over or intimidation tactics &lpar;75&percnt;&rpar;&semi; use of sexualized language &lpar;68&percnt;&rpar; and these behaviours were sometimes directed at teachers&sol;teacher-aides as well&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Leaving the classroom without permission was a common behaviour in schools that while disruptive&comma; was not directed at others &lpar;88&percnt;&rpar;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Less commonly&comma; severe&comma; problem behaviours involved interactions between students and teachers&sol;teacher-aides&period; These were nevertheless significant&colon; verbal abuse &lpar;71&percnt;&rpar;&semi; threats of violence &lpar;45&percnt;&rpar;&semi; physical violence &lpar;38&percnt;&rpar;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>The least common forms of severe&comma; problem behaviour in schools&comma; which did not involve other students were masturbation &lpar;16&percnt;&rpar; and self-harm &lpar;35&percnt;&rpar;&comma; but these proved both challenging to manage and created significant concern where they occurred&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Most principals found the management of severe&comma; problem behaviours challenging&period; They were angered by the lack of resources available to them and felt frustrated when repeated efforts to meet the needs of some children for specialized services resulted in failure&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>53&percnt; of principals reported that their capacity to manage their workload was affected by the need to manage incidence of severe problem behaviour<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>19&percnt; experienced impacts on their health and wellbeing<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<h3>&NewLine;Survey Two&colon; About the Child with Severe&comma; Problem Behaviour<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>This survey gathered data about 244 children &lpar;total population 8&comma;917&rpar; in 44 schools with severe&comma; problem behaviour&comma; including conditions such as ADHD&comma; ODD&comma; FASD&comma; ASD&comma; Chronic Anxiety and Self-Harm&period; The condition of Trauma emerged in the data and has also been discussed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>Boys were more likely have behavioural conditions by a ratio of 4&colon;1<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li> ODD was most commonly reported at 1&period;4&percnt; of the population of students<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>ADHD was reported in 1&period;1&percnt; of the population<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Chronic Anxiety was reported at a rate of 0&period;8&percnt; of the population<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>FASD was reported 0&period;8&percnt; of the population<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>ASD was reposted at 0&period;6&percnt; of the population<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Trauma was reported at 0&period;3&percnt; of the population&comma; but reporting depended on its appearance in free text space and therefore&comma; is likely to be underreported<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Self-Harm was reported at 0&period;25&percnt; of the population&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>All these conditions fall below conservative estimates of prevalence in the literature&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>Requests for classroom support totalled 1954 hours at an average of 15&period;6 hours per child in term one&comma; 2019<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Classroom hours received totalled 973 at an average of 7&period;6 hours&comma; less than half of the hours requested&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>20 children were allocated all the hours requested&comma; 44 children were allocated none&comma; 61 children were allocated less hours than requested&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>&NewLine;<strong>The failure of existing services to meet the needs of children with severe&comma; problem behaviours in Te Tai Tokerau under conditions in which they appear to be underreported suggests that there is a significant need for greater attention and resourcing in this area&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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