11. LESLEY SOPER (Labour) Link to this
to the Minister of Education
How are early childhood education centres assisting parents to raise their children?
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) Link to this
A total of 18 early childhood education centres have now begun offering parent support and development programmes, which is part of the Labour-led Government strategy to intervene early in families so our kids grow up safe, healthy, and confident. New centres offering the programmes include Newfield-Heidelberg Free Kindergarten in Invercargill, which offers support for parents of children up to the age of 3. The kindy held an opening of its new parents’ room recently, attended by the member Lesley Soper, and I want to thank it for its participation in the 4-year $6.6 million pilot programme, which has already helped 700 families in the past year to improve their parenting skills.
The parent support and development programme uses early childhood education centres as a community hub to provide support to stressed parents so they can do a better job raising their children. The programme offers parenting-skill workshops, promotes participation in early childhood education, reinforces the lessons learnt there at home, provides one-to-one support to vulnerable families and, where necessary, referrals to community agencies, and helps parents to build support networks in their home communities.
Paula BennettIn light of the Minister’s new-found concern with assisting parents to raise their children, will he contact those 12 creches in gyms that he has closed, to which parents went just so they could have some respite and that helped them to actually raise their children; and can he assure Sunday schools that he will not put them under the same regulations as early childhood education centres—which might be the best assistance he can give to parents?
The member raises two points, both of which she has been busy promoting misinformation about around New Zealand. Recently, she said on the radio that my ministry had closed 10 creches in gyms. We have closed none. Ten creches chose to close themselves. We did not close any.
Madam SPEAKERI repeat that the Ministry of Education has not closed any creches in gyms. As far as Sunday schools are concerned, I say that there is absolutely no intention to make Sunday schools fit under the regulations around childcare centres. That is a bit of spurious nonsense that the member has been spreading around New Zealand.
I seek leave of the House to table the list that the ministry provided of the 10 creches that the ministry wrote to—