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Playcentre Media Releases
For further information or to submit a media release please contact the Federation Media Officer,
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| Playcentres Win Top Community Award. | | 8th Oct 2007 |  Playcentres Win Top Community Award.
By Yvonne Airey
It's a parent co-operative unique in the world where the whanau is paramount and parenting skills are honed.
Now the work of the Hutt Playcentre Association – which covers the whole Hutt Valley – has been recognised as the supreme winner in this year's Wellington Airport Community Awards.
They will go on to represent this region at the TrustPower National Community Awards to be held in Wanaka in March 08.
For the past four years, Wellington Airport and the Community Trust of Wellington have recognised the efforts of volunteer community organisations that contribute to the fabric of their communities in the greater Wellington region.
From over 80 nominations overall, Hutt Playcentre topped the Lower Hutt awards and then went on to take the regional trophy.
As a group who totally put children first, their first reaction to the spectacular trophy is that it has too many “spiky bits” to be allowed near the youngsters, but the adults will long savour their win!
Their success is even sweeter following the disappointment of not being included in the government's early childhood extra funding programme rolled out earlier this year.
The award is a real highlight in this, the 60th anniversary year of the founding of the Playcentre Movement in Kelburn and Karori and based on the philosophy of child-initiated play and parents as first educators espoused by pioneer educationist Gwen Somerset.
Co-presidents Mary Margaret Schuck and Kerry Dougall say the totally parent-run Hutt Playcentre Association covers 18 Playcentres throughout the Hutt Valley from Upper Hutt to Eastbourne and Wainuiomata, with a main administration centre in Waterloo.
Also available is the Playcentre adult education programme that offers parents the opportunity of an NZQA diploma and enables them to meet the needs of adults working in a Playcentre co-operative.
Mary Margaret and Kerry feel it was the SPACE programme piloted in 2003 for first time parents and their children and their active incorporation of the principles of partnership of Te Tiriti o Waitangi into their policies and practices that really stood out for the Wellington community award judges.
“It is very easy to let the treaty principles slip into just token action, but we work hard to meet the needs of both out Maori and Pakeha families,” they say.
As a volunteer organisation based on parents who stay home with their children, they have extra hurdles to jump in a country where there is more government support and emphasis on parents returning to the workforce rather than staying at home.
Mary Margaret says that in the past five years, compliance to government has grown hugely, demanding more hours of data input than can be expected of their volunteers.
This, coupled with the introduction of the new Charities Act that has added around another 200 hours of work, means they are having to now pay for the work to be done.
Added to that again, people are having fewer children, thus reducing the pool of volunteers available.
Currently the Hutt Playcentres have 500 participating families and around 600-799 children.
However, the “huge benefits” of a quality pre-school education, together with strong parent support and social and networking opportunities far outweigh anything else, say these Playcentre mums.
Mary Margaret Schuck knew no one when she moved to Lower Hutt six years ago with her three children and cannot speak highly enough of the support she received.
To Kerry Dougall's two children, Wood Hatten Playcentre in Wainuiomata is but a distant memory, but 15 years on she is still passionate about the Playcentre movement's total support for New Zealand's most precious resources – the children and their families.
For further information on the Hutt Playcentre Association contact Brenda on 971 8561. |
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