Future Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern made the case for funding programs like Roots of Empathy back in 2016:
But here’s the reality; Roots of Empathy lost its funding, there is no automatic support for a child that witnesses family violence, mentoring programmes for kids who could use a role model are rare, Plunket and Tamariki Ora are only contracted for a handful of visits regardless of a family’s needs, in-home programmes like parents as first teachers have been cut, and there’s been no increase in support for families in low paid work for more than a decade.
So much of what is happening for our next generation is being pre-determined by the circumstances they are born into.