Since November 1989 New Zealand has had new statutory care and protection and youth justice procedures. They differ substantially from the procedures under the old 1974 act. For the majority of cases, the disposition of the child, services provided and, in the case of offending, any penalties or restitution imposed are now the responsibility of the family rather than the Court.

This responsibility is exercised through a new official process called the Family Group Conference, at which the State is represented but in which the decision-making power is expected to rest largely with the family. Only if this fails or if the offence falls into the most serious of categories is the matter passed to the Court. A new group of officials has been created to co-ordinate the process. They are known as Youth Justice and Care and Protection Co-ordinators.

Our perceptions of children tend to vacillate between a romanticised view of them as young innocents whose unacceptable behaviour should be excused because of their youth, immaturity and impressionability and the contrasting view that they are uncivilised barbarians who, for their own good, must be treated firmly, even severely, so they may leam to distinguish right from wrong and to behave properly.

The ‘child correction’ approach was favoured by the early British settlers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Soon after colonisation there were moves to establish child reformatories on the English model and children were often more harshly treated than adults. It was accepted that the most effective way of correcting children was to hit them with a cane or a whip. Some early observers noted the warmth and affection with which the indigenous Maori people treated their children and contrasted this with the stern and strict attitudes of the Anglo-Saxon colonisers.

The involvement of the State In the lives of children, young people and their families has taken a new turn in New Zealand since 1989. Now when a child or young person is in need of care or protection or had offended, matters are resolved with their participation and with the participation of their family. At the heart of the new system is the Family Group Conference which is a new forum for consensus decision-making and which is potentially adaptable to different cultural practices. Institutionalisation of the young has been drastically reduced. Families remain a part of the lives of their children. However practice problems remain, goals of cultural appropriateness have not always been achieved and services have not always been made available to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people or to strengthen their families.

Recent developments in the statutory family and child welfare field have led to the active promotion of the idea of partnership in the relationship between client families and social workers. This article highlights the international trend of client participation, and while supporting the principle, shows that there are significant obstacles to be overcome before social workers can move beyond the rhetoric.

In 1991 Denmark launched a major information campaign on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. No less than four different publications were brought out, each of them targeted at a specific group, with free copies to all schoolchildren. The youngest children received a picture book, the intermediate age group a newsletter and for the oldest pupils there was a newspaper. A book was available to adults for a small charge.

“The child citizenship project” is a thrilling experiment which has taken place for over a year in five Danish municipalities. The objective is to give the fellow citizens a better chance of being actively involved in local activities. There is a desire for letting the children exercise an influence on all aspects of their everyday life. They should be given larger possibilities to be heard and to have a voice in planning, the contents and the implementation of activities. In these processes, the children should become visible as fellow citizens. One of the most important functions of the whole project is the dialogue between child and adult.

A recent study which investigated the relationship between a range of measures of psychological well-being and stress in a group of 109 Melbourne mothers (Rodd, 1992), unearthed some surprising but not unexpected findings. In fact, the research into maternal stress was initiated following many years of working with parents, running parent support and education programs and discussions with a range of professionals who provide services for families. The end result of the examination of this observational and anecdotal evidence pointed to the fact that mothers of young children are stressed - not just slightly or moderately stressed - but experiencing extreme levels of emotional stress in relation to their parenting role!